
'j* n. 

OTOJ 


rt» 



J.t'Alln. .J' 

JOC&tMW 

»V 

f 1 '"' 




DCOifcttXf* 

I 


.* !:•;'' '.*,*:*.■ i, % s »•* i « * * « *.»-* *-4-t 

. , ,\\\'» V. W.\\\\ .'v\\ V. * 

V* .Vi *,*,»*«,*.* • • i *V* ** 

t V* «V. \\\ WV.V.WW'i* .• * * * * \ 



X><;{ » 


•tvmhi 

4KW> 


• ■'■;■■• ■ :: : ' r 




Bggpi 






OQfoOOl 


V-iQt! 


f * rl# _ +-\ * « • 

•>* v k-»m 




wv.-uViVaV 

«< * • *«.< «• »•• * * »* i «i • i«ii * • 

,V-V<V V ‘ V.- v- 

. « • ( . I 4 k • k •• » 4 4 w t « 4 » » • 4 • • *4 • -i 

• ♦%»*» .* ••<< 1 I> .•€.•• | s i • I * » • • ■ 

• 4 * « n A - < 4 ..«•(' 4 • * a » • • . 4 * * * «, <• 

• ^ • *i H ^ I* ’ ’ * * % « * • *T*- 1 .4 * 

• * •* \ • » 4.4 4 4 % 4 # 4-4 < ^-4?'*.*4 • 

I - • • ••4 4 ♦ 4 • • ♦ 4-4 4 4 # • • # % 

• 4 « 4 < , i. ,1.4 • f 4 * « t 4- • . 4 4 4 • v * 1 A 

• >*!+'* +&E 1 « t \4.i 4- 4 ♦ ♦ • :^5t 4 * 4 r * •« 

• • «•*■*.4 ' 4_t • • 4 ^ • • • • * 4»4 A. » t 4-1 • 

• •-44 4 • 1^1 «»*•*♦ . .».! •■*!.». 

> ..it'.i<li«*ll>( l I I • 4 »*. » I * 

• . . - * -4 - 4 - 4 .-. -k. . . %-•.»--. - « . . 4 - ... • # . 

• Ill • -4—1 .1 • -»-«. • « « -I- * — I ». I *.« • • * » • i 


• • .• 

*Ta* .vV. - .W. V.W-SUV. 1 %%' 


jiivrM>pi».h . 

o^.rbwHi! 
bcinSiM! 
J&tMV.il! 

i*Vi 


<Vr.’.*,*i .’v .v ,,'V 

4 4 • 4 ^ * 4 # *• «►% • *^%-4--4^4 

! t *4 4 * 4. k 4 * *r $ • | » V *- « • - 

• *» » V • k « v 1 • k • 4 • k . * 

. • » • • 4 « • • • < r • • t » » • 

• -4-4 4 4 •• • 'k. r ■« . 4 **•••• 

iV^v. vv,/ 

% * V.l'l < * ,• .♦ t.»,l * 4 T-l *,« 
.1 • ‘ 1 * k-4 . i-i 1 if* 

«-*5f ** 4.4 -e-4-~4 4 ».« I . *-v . 

llrl.l • »-•.* • • ... « »,i 1 

4 J-l • • » 4 • . . * -4 4-4-4-f • • 

-4.1'* .III. » -. I . I «... . 

K'gi* Knfc «r*3. giugf fmw; •. 

• 1 ♦ • 1 • * • * *,. ♦ . 4 . • ♦. 


• 1 ••«*•» ( k •*■*•* . 41 . 

■ • .* t -t- t « 4 ♦ -* • » * • • - . n - 

• • - r « 1 • « 1 . ••••»< 4 

1,1 I < t It * *,4 I- 1 • *’I » 

.» • | • I . 4* ... ...II. 

• rij t • • ••» t 4-v» • 

* '. • • » 1 I■ »-4 4 * • 
• I ......... 

•"<•* *.« it* « i;»' • « « •.. 
•ttstllllll.l ♦■.«»• 
•»• 4 -4 -4 • * • I 4 .« * k 4 . 4 t 4.1 -4-k 

*4!« .%• *’. %*;.•; 

'* ♦.» * *•’• *1 •'•*4*l*« 

111 • • 4 » III - »-•*•*« 

• * •.»,*:• 4 • t • • • t *-«•• •!< 

* I- • ■ 

. . ... ... . ». . , I . , , . ... . 

» « 4;<,* t k■• * • * 4- * t .4 • 

• » 4 I • »-• I— I • « Ill I 4 * 

• < t 4 »*•«*»’- *• *4*«*•*,*.*;" 

• *-• • 1.41.1k »-Jk • 4|.4 

. 4 I ... I • »•* . • . • *-4 . . 

• I . . I 4- . « . ■ I ( I . .- • * . 

• • ••41.4 * •-•■* . 4 

• * A ■■% - ► * 4 « r ,• .4 4 * » • * - » 

I • 4«... I 41. • .14 I. 44 

• 4,1* *•» t.t.t 4 , ».,. » •- » 

.« • • * it 'I ’4 —4 4 . 4 . 44 . . > 

•44«ll4l.«< * . I . 4 . ... 

4 4 4-. « 4 . 4 * ;t » • 4. 4 1 »4 

-.4 4 . . 4 4 «- . * . 4 1 4 4 4 .4 

< * ♦' V* •<*•»• » 1.4.1 • 4. 

• 44144.4 4 4 4 — 4 • 4»44 

". 4*.'|*4* 4*." 4* 4* 4 ‘.' 4 * 4 * •*4*,*,!, 

4 *^4 .4 4 <;«,«• »t( ( * • * » 4 « * » » 

1 K* V I* 1* -• > ** I* i i / I* V ,v v 1 


4 • 4 . . . 1 4- • 4.4 . I I . • . 1 4 4 t 4 4 4 ■ 1 , l.t .’• 

• • 114 < 44 4.4-«4 4 . » • 4 4 . .*4 4 4 . « « , . . 4 . | . • • 

'4 I 4.4 1 * 4 4- 4-4 * %4-4-.4-*-4 414 4 4 • • * 4'4 • . 

... .4 4 4 441 4 k-H * « 4 -4- <• 4< 4 * 4 4 / • 4 4 - • 4 • r .*-4-4.4 

'tV/. 3 

,v. v-kV.^.vy*'.' 

.-4 4 -4 * 4-4-4 4 -4 * 4 4M-4 


BKM 


^ • -4 ♦ • « r • - • 

* ♦ • • • • « * • • « ? 

• + t • • 4 4 % 4 ' - f ♦ • 

. .,V.'.’.*4--V‘.-.'4 

4V:*' 

• 4* 

-V.*. 

, uv-.y*-* ■ ♦ v 4 v.«'44* 

... 1 4 . 4 % • 1 4 <.» 

• » 4 • • 4“ |4 4 .. a 

» •- • 4 • 4-4-4 4 ; . . .4 » • 

• • r • t • ^ 4*t ♦ • -* 

• ♦ • -• # # 4 1 • -• ♦- 

4 • 4 # , # .4 # 4 • • • « 


» ♦ ' •*.# # • * ♦: 

• f- *« t - «* » # A 

» f.* i'*“« •• * « • t* 

• 4 4 4 mi |Ml» . » «-• # » 

.*V * *4% * ^ 

* • • • • • # - *-♦“• » *►- 

. 4 '*%. • . ,*4 % ^ 

*4 f * • * * ¥ - 4 .« 4 -4 .# • 

• ••« • * • * • * • 4-« •% 

f « 4 4 • » # ' • 

• y*** > a>>>x 

• • • • • t * <*-4 < » * ? • 1 

» •« • * • • < • ' • t • < 

• «.«»#*. i« • 4 * \ 

'»»*#•• . *4 • ft • # 

# • 

• * % • • 4 ~4> -4* *4 % 4 - * -4 

• • W . . • • --4 • * m 4 0 


.4 f # % 4 «'t • ♦ % 4 • \ « 1 • • ^ * 

• *«*««•• .4 • • 4 • « % • • . »-•- • 

V4*.V<V. 

t-i « ..* .- • * Mil t;t t t ,• ,k *T* 4 

<•444. 4- •> .44 4 • > . 4-t 4-4 • I 

. 4 ...... 

♦ •-44 4.4* I .4 4 . 4 . • ".4 4 . 4 *.. 

• .* « • i'« ♦.i t ^ • * -4 • * # • • 4-4-* « 

4 • ^ * ♦ .. 1,1.1 i/ If* • • I ♦ | 

» 4 . v .• • • A 4 a «•« • • t • • i *.-* * 

• * * « ‘ ' » t-,* • • i • • * • » * • 

» .4. ■••••• 

« • « 4.4.A • « .*-• 4 1 • I • « 

• 4 •».*•« 4 / # • 1 4 

a * / v/ r. * v *: • v Wv • • t y • ‘ 


• * • • • • * A • .4 I 4 4 A A A 4 - 


* 1 ♦ •-* • 4--f-t 9 4 

...••«•% •-.»«< I 

« - 4 * • 4 - • 4 • I 











































































































































































































































































































































Class (3 

Book_tZSSli 




42 _ 

ML& 


COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 

























































THE FANGS OF THE SERPENT 





THE FANGS 
OF THE SERPENT 


BY 


GEORGE R. FOX 


J 


NEW YORK 

MINTON, BALCH & COMPANY 
1924 




Copyright, 1924, by 
GEORGE R. FOX 



Printed in the United States of America hy 

J. J. LITTLE AND IVES COMPANY, NEW YORK 


MAY 17 1924 v V- 

©C1A79245 6 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAQB 

I. The Summons. 1 

II. The Fluttering Fragment .... 16 

III. The Scent of the Woodland .... 30 

IV. What Killed J. Marion Oswald? . . 43 

V. A Ghostly Visitant.58 

VI. Considerations. 74 

VII. “M. — E.”.88 

VIII. Conscience ys. Reason.102 

IX. I Lose the Battle. 118 

X. Detective Sullivan Finds the Murderer 129 

XI. “Do You Want to Die?”.144 

XII. The Missive with a Corner Gone . . 162 

XIII. Special Delivery Stamps. 177 

XIV. The Writer of the Letters . . . . 192 

XV. The Weeping Woman. 208 

XVI. Deborah Materializes.223 

XVII. Stitmore Tithes Finds the Curare . . 243 

XVIII. A Find .257 

XIX. “The Fangs of the Serpent” . . . 271 






































































THE FANGS OF THE 
SERPENT 


CHAPTER I. 


THE SUMMONS, 


OME with me, sir—the master—I beg your 



pardon—but-” 

At the sound of this voice at my back, I wheeled 
and faced the speaker. He was an old man, bare¬ 
headed, and in the livery of a butler. His face was 
white and drawn save for two red spots on each cheek 
just beneath the eyes. The result of great excitement, 
I thought; or might it not come from exertion, for he 
was panting and blowing as though he had run for 
some distance. 

“Oh, sir,” he gasped as he tried to control his labor¬ 
ing lungs, “he is serious. Come with me, please,” and 
he laid a hand on my sleeve as he turned to lead me 
away. 

In the great city of Chicago one does not lightly 
follow an unknown to an unknown destination for an 
unknown purpose. A sobbing girl has led many an 
unwary man to a rendezvous with criminal associates 
who rob, and sometimes murder him. An agonized cry 
for “Help” has called more than one kindhearted 


1 



2 The Fangs of the Serpent 

rescuer to financial loss. Almost has it come that in 
the Windy City, the cynical citizen will calmly walk 
away while murder is being done. It is not his business 
—and it may be a trap. 

Yet I did not hesitate. As the man started forward, 
I followed. In the first place, a reporter never has 
enough in his pockets very much to mind if it is stolen 
or not. In the second place, anyone who follows that 
game for the years I have been in it, should read at a 
flash a character as transparent as that of the old man 
before me. 

“Take a chance, Larry, me boy,” I remarked to 
myself. “Maybe—it may be you’ve stumbled on some¬ 
thing worth while.” But I could not know how big it 
was going to be. 

As these thoughts ran through my head, the butler 
was hurrying before me, back over the way he must 
have come to have overtaken me. I realized now that 
I had misjudged him when I thought his shortness of 
breath was due to running. The old man was no 
sprinter; he hobbled along now in a way that again 
forced his lungs to labor anew. His lameness it was, 
aided perhaps by age, that shortened his breathing to 
gasps. 

He did not go far back along the street before he 
turned in at the gate of a pretentious house with a 
browns tone front. It was a grim, gloomy pile, in years 
long past its prime. When one of these old castles 
gets run down, it takes on the appearance of a prim 
old maid who is careless of her appearance. 

As we reached the steps, the old man had recourse 
to the hand-rail to assist his halting limbs as he climbed; 
even then he moved so slowly that I had time to study 


The Summons 


3 


him more closely. I judged that he was about sixty 
years of age. He was very bald, with a clean-shaven 
face. Despite his efforts in hurrying up the steps, he 
was erect and as straight as a ramrod. His uniform 
was not old; neither had it an appearance of newness. 
He wore it as one long accustomed to such accoutre¬ 
ments. 

At the door, which apparently in his haste he had 
left open, he stepped aside with a courtly grace that 
I might enter first. I did. 

It isn’t the thing to do in Chicago, to let a strange 
man send you first into an unknown house. Yet I did 
it; for the house was no longer unknown. While I 
had been deeply buried in thought as I hastened along 
through the crisp fall breeze, and had given little or 
no attention to the residences I was passing, I had by 
now recognized the building. It was the old home 
mansion of J. Marion Oswald. 

Everyone knows J. Marion Oswald. Even if he were 
not reputed the owner of forty millions, the times with¬ 
out number that he has been investigated, and the 
countless other times threatened with prison, would 
make his name a household word wherever the press 
penetrates. And through investigation and threat he 
continued calmly to pile millions on top of more 
millions. 

He isn’t one of our selfmade men, either. L. Henry 
Oswald left his son some millions, no one ever knew 
just how many. These in turn had been handed down 
from his father, plain old John Oswald who got his 
first million together selling pork to the Union Army 
in the days of ’61. 

By his “the master is serious,” the butler must have 


4 The Fangs of the Serpent 

meant J. Marion was ill or in difficulties. Then to call 
in a reporter—when old J. Marion hated them so 
cordially. So I had not hesitated to step before the 
strange butler into the great hall. In some of the 
districts of the city—with brownstone fronts, too—he 
might have been using his uniform as a stall; but not 
here. “No,” half consciously flitted through my mind 
while I was yet considering what might be the matter 
with the millionaire. “He won’t use a blackjack on my 
skull.” We all abuse the millionaire as a thief and 
worse, but we trust to the air of respectability which 
surrounds him. 

As I entered the butler closed the door and stepped 
before me. “Follow me, please,” he requested, the habit 
of years still sitting upon his shoulders though it w T as 
plainly evident that he was pitifully disturbed. Down 
the broad passage he led, and up the great staircase 
which sprang into the air at the end of the hall. 

Up the first flight without a pause, save as he labored 
from step to step. No halting on the landing of the 
second floor; up and up; he no longer panted, but the 
muscles of his back twitched with every step. He was 
lifting each foot by an individual effort of will. Nor 
was there pause at the third floor. Up, still up; and 
slowly. 

The stairway swept round and round in a great 
circular soaring and I began to wonder. I’d seen the 
house a hundred times, but I’d never noticed. How 
many stories were there in the Oswald building? Had 
they, unnoticed, modernized it to a twenty-story limit? 
If so, why hadn’t they put in elevators? Then we 
reached the last landing, on what I would have called 


The Summons 


5 


the attic floor. The butler paused before the single 
door opening to the left out of a small square hall. 

It seemed strange that this door should be closed 
when the street door had been open; but closed it was. 
An alert sense of hesitation, self-preservation, perhaps, 
made me pause. But again the consciousness of being 
in the home of J. Marion Oswald reassured me. As 
the butler opened the door I passed in before him. 

“There he is, sir.” His tone was low; there was no 
need for him to point. “Do what you can for him, 
doctor.” 

Just before the door, and to the right, upon the 
floor lay the long form of J. Marion Oswald himself. 
Near his feet stood two girls; a single glance revealed 
them as servants. At his head, and supporting it, 
knelt a woman whom I judged to be in about her thirty- 
fifth year. Of course I know better now, but then, 
perhaps because of the lines of worry on her face, and 
because of her position, I took her to be much older 
than she really was. 

She had pillowed his head on one arm as she knelt 
above him, and in the hand of the other she held a glass 
of some liquid, which I took for water; there was a 
haggard, drawn look about her mouth, but there were 
no other signs of nervousness nor were there marks 
of tears. 

As she heard the butler speak she looked up and 
catching sight of me set the glass down on the floor. 
“We found him like this. And we*ve tried everything 
we know for a fainting spell, but he does not regain 
his senses. Help him, doctor.” 

Now I’m no doctor. My profession is journalism, 
and perhaps I should have confessed at once. But I 


6 The Fangs of the Serpent 

did not. Besides, perhaps there was something I could 
do, for I have a not inconsiderable knowledge of 
medicine gathered in the rough and tumble life of my 
vocation. Then too, I could see that if anything were 
to be done, there was need of haste; and if a physician 
was summoned, it might be too late when he arrived; 
first aid might render him assistance. 

There was a more unlovely side to my desire to 
remain. Back of it was the impetus of a life’s train¬ 
ing. Here was the great J. Marion Oswald, who had 
over and over refused to be interviewed, whose dislike 
for newspaper men gave rise to the oft-quoted, “Loves 
as Oswald loves a reporter,” brought iow in his own 
house. Sickness, accident, possibly death, for I could 
not judge which from the single glance I had taken, 
happening to a man of his standing and I, a news- 
writer withdrawing, would never be forgiven nor my 
offense forgotten by my sheet nor the whole press. 
Every instinct of training bade me remain; a few faint 
qualms of decency tried to gain the upper hand and 
force me to confess, then go; but they were stifled 
almost before they were born. 

The reason I had been taken for a doctor was self- 
evident. I had been well bundled up, for November 
winds in Chicago are chill. In my hand I carried a 
case almost identical to a physician’s. ’Tis true it 
held only my cornet. A man of medicine of today 
cannot be told by his dress, though we still retain the 
impression that he can. So the butler, had he been 
the one first to catch sight of me, had taken the case 
as a sign manual of my business. It was “Come, 
doctor,” with him and naturally the lady had assumed 
he had secured the assistance sent for. 


The Summons 


7 

I knelt beside the still form. Almost as an instinct, 
having seen doctors do it hundreds of times, I reached 
for his wrist and pulse. Not the shade of a beat could 
I detect; nor was there movement in the great artery 
of the neck. I noticed, too, that his flesh was not 
warm, though neither had it the chill of death. As I 
raised his arm I was surprised to detect a stiffness. 
It could not be rigor mortis, I argued, for even though 
he were dead, surely they had found him shortly after 
the seizure, whatever it was. 

His eyelids were nearly closed and as I raised one 
expecting to encounter a glassy stare, I received a dis¬ 
tinct shock. The ball was clear and bright, but moved 
not in the slightest. Yet I could have sworn that there 
was the light of reason in the eye, almost as though 
he understood and would speak, yet could not. So 
startling was the look of this single eye that I raised 
the other lid. The ball presented the same appear¬ 
ance. Yet as I gazed the first impression passed. The 
eyes faded, grew dull, were dead and lifeless. 

Yet so strongly was I impressed that I lit a match 
and held it close to the eye, as though to singe it; not 
a twitch of the lid, not a movement, not a change 
rewarded my efforts. 

“Oh, doctor, what is the matter; what has happened 
to him?” and the woman who held his head turned ap¬ 
pealing eyes to mine. But without waiting for me to 
speak she bent over him and called in the sweetest voice 
I have ever heard, “Father, father.” 

Then I recognized what I should have known at 
first; this was J. Marion Oswald’s only child, his 
daughter Isobel. I was familiar with her features in 
a general way, having seen many a picture of her in 


8 


The Fangs of the Seepent 


Sunday supplements, and had caught glimpses of her 
at the Charity Ball and other social divertissements; in 
those and at those functions, she did not look at all as 
she did when I entered. In the pictures she appeared 
almost superhuman; at the affairs she looked the child 
of eighteen; now, she was a woman. 

Worn and troubled, her eyes were drawn in anguish, 
yet her voice, I hear it singing in my dreams. 
“Father, father.” Music such as that would call me 
back from the grave. Were he only sleeping, were he 
unconscious, surely he would hear and would answer. 

He did not. I was convinced that for J. Marion 
Oswald the last earthly call had sounded. To me, he 
was no longer in the land of the living. Yet who was 
I to say. True, I have seen about as many corpses 
in my life as the average physician will in an entire 
life in practice. For years I had covered the morgue; 
and not for nothing have I been at every great accident 
within two hundred miles of Chicago, in the last few 
years. He was dead. I knew it. But—it was not for 
me to say. 

Yet, partly from a desire to help and partly for 
the sake of the news, I had posed as a doctor. Now 
to extricate myself. 

“Miss Oswald,” and I rose and stepped around the 
still form until I reached her side. Gently taking the 
head from her arm I laid it on the floor, then raised 
her to her feet. I tried to break it gently. Somehow, 
death is a big thing, bigger than any of us. “Miss 

Oswald, bear up; I’m afraid-” and I needed to say 

no more. 

“But let me suggest that you send for Dr. Alec 
Thompson at once. He is a specialist in paralysis and 



The Summons 9 

while I greatly fear there is no aid he can render your 
father, there is yet the chance.” 

That butler was a jewel. He had stood just inside 
the door while I had made the examination and now, 
without a word from me or from his mistress, he 
hurried out and I heard him going haltingly down the 
stairs. He was on his way to send for Dr. Thompson. 

If he got Thompson, and I was sure he would, as 
the doctor would not yet have left his office, I was all 
right. Alec Thompson and I had been on many a trip 
together when he was ambulance surgeon in the days 
before he began to specialize. My coming in would 
be satisfactorily explained; there had been no intrusion 
on my part; I was asked to come, and so had a very 
good right to be there. Besides, he knew that I was 
capable of rendering first aid, and my staying would 
thus be accounted for. 

Miss Oswald had not taken my message in a 
hysterical manner. The call for the specialist had not 
seemed to penetrate her understanding, yet she grasped, 
for she must have feared it, that her father was gone. 
With a sobbing, “Father, father,” she turned from me 
to look down into the still face. Then the tears came 
and turning again she came into my arms. 

Doubtless she did not see where she was going, yet 
even in that first hour I dream that she knew and felt 
a kindred soul. It was but an instant that I held her 
before I passed her on to the maids; but in that moment 
I changed. Since then life has never been the same. 

The two maids were sensible women, though neither 
was any older than her mistress. Between them they 
led her away to the lower floor. I was alone with 
J. Marion Oswald. 


10 The Fangs of the Serpent 

There was no reason that I could see why the body 
should not be removed and placed on a bed; but the 
butler was still phoning for Dr. Thompson; the maids 
were with the daughter and there was no one to help 
move him. I stood guard over all that was left of the 
house of a great spirit, all that remained of his pomp, 
the only symbol of the power that had shaken men. 

He lay on a rug, but was uncovered. I glanced 
about for something to place over him. Nothing came 
to view save a great Flemish tapestry illustrating the 
Field of the Cloth of God, which hung on the wall 
beyond the doorway. This I hastily jerked down, add¬ 
ing, I am afraid, a few more rents to those it already 
contained. With this priceless old relic I covered the 
remains of a man who had beaten down others that 
he might rise, yet who was himself now as low as the 
lowest. 

By the time this had been accomplished the butler 
had again crept up the stairs to tell me that he had 
reached Dr. Thompson and that the doctor would be 
with us as soon as his car could bring him. As I 
noticed the limp of the butler and his apparent age, I 
decided not to suggest moving the body but to leave 
it as it was for the doctor’s inspection. I have seen 
too many bodies to feel the slightest touch of chill at 
so close contact with death, but I was a stranger in 
the house and thought best to request the butler to 
remain with me until the Doctor came. 

As we waited I had time to study my surroundings. 
I had realized long ere this in what room we were but 
until that moment there had been no chance to survey it. 

Of course everyone has heard of the great collections 
in archeology of J. Marion Oswald. With the wealth 


11 


The Summons 

at his command, and with collecting as a hobby, no 
museum in America contained a greater wealth of the 
antique, the odd and the unusual, mostly prehistoric, 
than did the collection of him who lay dead and covered 
by one of his trophies. 

It was said, and the Sunday sheets play it up when¬ 
ever other news is scarce, that he maintained two com¬ 
plete excavating expeditions by the year; that never 
was there a new find in the canyons of the southwest, 
in the jungles of Sumatra, on the cliffs of Incaland, 
or elsewhere, but that, if it was of a nature involving 
the races that dwelt in the dim past ere recorded history 
was born, the agents of J. Marion Oswald were there, 
lifting the cream of each discovery for the private 
enjoyment of the millionaire collector. 

As we guarded all that was mortal of the man, all 
about I saw the results of his work. For the entire 
top floor of his* home was given over to museum pur¬ 
poses. Aside from the boxlike hall at the head of the 
stairs, the floor was in one large room. The old house 
must have been a mammoth, for this single apartment 
exceeded in size many a ballroom I’ve been in. 

All about it, in cases and out, yet in some semblance 
of order, were scattered the gems which many a col¬ 
lector coveted; and if rumor had it aright, some did 
far more than covet. 

The tapestry I had so unceremoniously removed 
from its hanging-place seemed out of place among the 
bowls, axes, tools, spears, figured statuettes from Siam 
and from Central America, stone images small and 
perfect from Assyria, books of clay from the same 
place, and books from Yucatan on the fiber that bore 
the painted glyphs. 


12 The Fangs of the Seepent 

In all that collection was no article that was com¬ 
mon. To find a place in the museum J. Marion Oswald 
had formed, each must be unique. 

I had not known Mr. Oswald. I experienced no 
particular emotion now that he was gone, and as the 
opportunity to inspect his treasures was one that might 
never offer again, I walked slowly about among the 
cases. But with the butler was the feeling of loss and 
the instinctive dislike to remain near the body, al¬ 
though it was but a covered heap on the floor. Keep¬ 
ing a respectful distance in the rear, he followed me 
as I viewed the relics. 

A suit of badly rusted and decayed armor attracted 
my attention. Many parts were missing I noted as I 
stopped and looked at it more closely. Yet from what 
remained I readily made out that it was not unlike 
those of English make. As the butler saw that I was 
interested he sidled up, and with an occasional glance 
at the form hidden by the tapestry explained. 

“The master got that many years ago.” His voicd 
was hushed and his eyes sparkled with tears, but he 
stood straight. “It was found in the New England 
States, somewhere. I am told, sir, as how a poet wrote 
a piece about it.” 

“H-m-m,” I remarked. “ ‘The Skeleton in Armor.’ 
Yes.” 

He assented. So, J. Marion Oswald, too, was to be 
added to the list of those American collectors who 
possessed among their collections works far from 
genuine. 

As I turned away from the armor, a huge, brass- 
bound chest caught my eye. It stood opposite the 
armor and at the rear of the entrance hall, just where, 


The Summons 


13 


if the walls of the entry were removed, would be “the 
head of the stairs.” It was on the wall just behind 
the chest that the tapestry had hung. This brass- 
stripped monstrosity, too, seemed out of place. It 
looked too modern; and besides, it was of such size 
that it would make a truckload of itself. And it was 
rather heavy, as I found when I lifted one end. 

The butler was ready with an explanation. “That 
the master had sent him last month. I heard him tell 
Miss Oswald that it was found in a cave in Peru with 
a lot of Inca remains.” 

That would account for his having it. It was a find 
that would be the subject of dispute for years to come. 
Did the Incas make it? or did they get it from the 
Spaniards ? or had it come to America long before the 
crews of Columbus were persuaded to push out of the 
harbor on their great journey? 

Anyone who has ever read the pamphlets that J. 
Marion Oswald was wont to publish more than semi- 
occasionally will understand what such a discovery 
meant to one like him who delighted in expressing the 
most bizarre theories concerning the peopling of the 
Western World. 

A sheaf of spears hung across from the chest and a 
little down the room. The beautiful workmanship of 
the copper tips attracted my attention but I no sooner 
made as though to grasp them than the butler 
protested. 

“Oh, no, sir. Don’t dare to touch them. Not as 
you would harm them; oh, no, sir, but the master won’t 
let us servants dust them or anything. He said they 
are poisoned.” 

I am little frightened by anything of that kind; I 


14 The Fangs of the Serpent 

reasoned that if they were antiques and had ever been 
coated with a toxic substance, its virulence would long 
ere this have departed. But as I saw that the old man 
was nervous while I remained near them, I strolled up 
to a mounted group that stood beyond. 

It represented a scene from the Pueblo country and 
showed what I took to be a part of the Hopi snake 
dance ceremonies. The Indians were grouped in 
natural postures, while the rattlesnakes looked as 
though they were alive. Whoever did the work, it was 
a mighty fine example of modern museum mounting. 
But unlike those in other institutions, it was not glass- 
enclosed. 

I did not understand just why it was among Mr. 
Oswald’s collections until, some time later, I read his 
treatise on this dance and the proof he tried to adduce 
that the Hopis, because of the snake festival, were 
direct descendants of worshipers of Siva and came 
from India. 

It was purely a matter of luck that I had penetrated 
into this museum. So far as I know, no newspaper man 
had ever before got this far into the home of J. Marion 
Oswald. Ever since the government had had him on 
the stand in the rebate cases of ’96, and the newspapers 
had pounced on and played up the one slip he made at 
that inquiry, he had refused absolutely to see any 
representative of the press. Under the situation, I 
made the most of my chance. Here was material 
enough for a dozen special articles. Yet I was not 
minded to use it. If I could have got in while the 
owner lived and with his permission- 

Now he lay stretched out in the middle of it all; 
oblivious to the marvels he had gathered; oblivious to 



The Summons 


15 


the fact that an heir of the fourth estate was taking 
it all in. 

From far down in the lower region of the house, a 
tiny tinkle floated up to us. Punctilious, the butler 
made for the stairs. But before he had descended 
farther than the third landing, I heard voices and the 
light tread of feet on the second flight; I recognized 
Dr. Thompson’s deep bass. The maid was bringing 
him up. 


CHAPTER II. 


THE FLUTTERING FRAGMENT. 

I MET Dr. Thompson at the door. The butler was 
with him, the maid having returned to a lower floor. 
As I greeted him he recognized me with surprise. “How 
does it happen you are here?” he inquired. 

I explained the error of the butler in taking me for 
a doctor; how I, spurred on by my news sense, had 
followed him blindly, not knowing to what he sum¬ 
moned me; how, as I entered the room I saw the need 
for a doctor and as I did have some medical knowl¬ 
edge, had made an examination; this had led me to 
believe that J. Marion Oswald was dead. 

But I could not be certain. Cataleptic conditions 
simulate death; and there might be other trance-like 
states which were too close to the border for me to 
determine. This explanation took but a few seconds. 
As I finished Dr. Thompson nodded and stepped over 
to the body. 

“You are right,” he said after the briefest of 
scrutinies. “He is dead.” 

But in the case of a millionaire one may not lightly 
utter a pronunciamento; one must know. In the matter 
of a poor unfortunate found stiffened out in O’Leary’s 
Place, I have seen Thompson—and many another 
doctor, too—give the broken body a hurried glance, a 
light touch on the wrist, and summon the undertaker. 
16 


The Fluttering Fragment 17 

Not in the present problem, though. Dr. Thomp¬ 
son made the most thorough examination I have ever 
seen attempted. He made every test of which I ever 
heard and many more that were new to me. When, 
at last, he rose, I knew that he knew; the man was 
dead or he was not. He but verified his first state¬ 
ment. “He's dead,” bluntly. That settled it. 

In one way it did and in another it did not. When 
I came to cause, I ran upon an unsuspected snag. 

A stroke, wasn’t it?” I inquired as he stood putting 
his instruments into his case. It seemed most probable 
to me that this was the seizure which had resulted in 
death. With a serious face the doctor turned to me. 

“No,” and there was no levity in his eyes. “Friend 
Larry, you are concerned in a very serious matter. 
J. Marion Oswald died of poison.” 

“Poison!” My thought raced. One of the great 
ones of earth! And I, not yet in touch with my paper. 
Yet it was a shock, too. I admit that to be called in 
from the street and to impersonate a doctor, examin¬ 
ing an unconscious man and pronouncing him dead, 
then to have “poisoned” introduced, and to know that 
the victim was very wealthy, was food for serious ap¬ 
prehension. After I had taken a moment to consider, 
I could not see how I was in any way implicated. By 
his bald statement Alec did not mean that I was directly 
concerned but rather that at first hand I was receiving 
my impressions. The newswriter surged back and 
submerged the individual. 

“Poison, Doc! You sure?” Facts, facts, I must 
have. 

“There is little doubt of it. His death is the result 
of the administration of some poison which acts in a 


18 


The Fangs of the Serpent 


paralyzing manner upon the nerves. That is as much 
as I would care to say without making an autopsy.” 

“How was he poisoned? Did he do it himself?” 

If he did, there would be no necessity for leaving the 
body where it now lay; we might as well carry it down 
to a sleeping chamber from whence later, it would be 
borne to its last resting place. 

Dr. Thompson shook his head in answer to my last 
question. 

“That is not for me to say. But I will say to you 
that I do not believe it was self-administered.” 

Doubtless this was true. J. Marion Oswald had 
too much to live for to think of hurrying himself into 
the world beyond, though that could not long have 
been put off, as he was in his seventies. No, old men 
do not usually poison themselves, especially when they 
enjoy the best the world can give and have a hobby 
to ride. 

The butler, standing behind me, had heard all that 
had been said. “Oh, doctor,” his voice was almost a 
sob, “it can’t be—it can’t be. What will Miss Isobel 
think ?” 

I have watched many a soul in many a heart¬ 
breaking situation, but I never saw a man in grief 
stand as straight as that old butler stood. 

His hands were as though glued to his sides, but his 
face worked; it writhed, it twisted; the anguish of his 
soul was reflected in every movement of his lineaments. 
Butlers trained to immobility?—Possibly so for 
ordinary occasions but put them into a trying situa¬ 
tion and then see. 

I wondered at his sorrow. J. Marion Oswald, by 
reputation at least, was not a lovable character. Yet, 


The Fluttering Fragment 19 

unloved and unloving, he might have inspired in the 
heart of the old servant a genuine affection for his 
master. 

“Yes,” and Dr. Thompson motioned me to lead the 
butler to the far side of the body, “that it is. Under¬ 
stand, I make no definite statement as to the cause, but 
poisoning there is.” As the old man and I walked 
around the still form, Alec added, “As it is poison, 
the coroner must be sent for; until he comes, remain 
here but disturb nothing,” and he went down to tele¬ 
phone for the state’s official. 

When Coroner Hoffman arrived, he was accom¬ 
panied by the police surgeon, two officers in uniform, 
and a man in plain clothes whom I knew well, Abe 
Sullivan of the detective bureau. Abe and I have been 
together on many a queer happening. As he caught 
sight of me a question sprang into his eyes, but he 
did not voice it at this time. He greeted me as cordially 
as circumstances would permit. 

The surgeon was the only member of the party 
who appeared to have work to do. The two officers 
came to rest against the wall beside the doorway; the 
coroner found a seat in one of the few chairs in the 
room and Sullivan strolled leisurely about the floor. 

The medical officer questioned Dr. Thompson as to 
the steps taken, and being informed, requested him to 
assist in a second investigation. The two went care¬ 
fully over the still form. Every test Alec had made 
the other repeated. They were slow and deliberate 
in their work. I did not know how much Thompson 
had told over the phone, but it must have been enough 
to wake them up. They recognized the importance of 
thoroughness and accuracy. 


20 


The Fangs of the Serpent 


At last they were done and I heaved a sigh as they 
arose. The coroner stood up and the doctors faced 
him. 

“Well, Dr. Templeton,” and Hoffman stood waiting. 

There was a frown on the surgeon’s face and a 
puzzled look about his eyes, but his words gave no 
indication of such thoughts. 

“The man died three hours ago of poison.” 

“How administered?” 

“We have not yet determined.” He paused and the 
wrinkles of puzzlement became deeper as he added, 
“We cannot make out the nature of the poison. It 
acts in a much different manner from any with which 
we are familiar.” 

The lights had been turned on before the coroner 
and his associates arrived and that official now selected 
a chair with a broad arm, there being no table in the 
room; sinking into it, he drew out a record book and a 
fountain-pen and jotted down our names and addresses. 
This accomplished he began asking questions. 

“It was you who phoned us about this case,” he 
inquired of Dr. Thompson. 

“Yes.” 

“Who called you in?” 

“A phone call which I have since learned was sent 
by the butler.” 

The coroner looked at the old servant. 

“You called in Dr. Thompson? Is he the family 
doctor?” 

“No, sir, he isn’t. But this doctor,” and he in¬ 
dicated me, “told me to get Dr. Thompson as was a 
specialist. But please, sir, can’t we take master away? 
I can’t bear to see him lying there.” 


The Fluttering Fragment 21 

“In just a few moments.” The coroner was 
sympathetic, understanding the motive which prompted 
the request. I noticed that Abe Sullivan was standing 
just back of the coroner’s chair, seemingly studying 
the pattern of the ceiling. I knew better. He was 
watching our features; not a move nor an expression 
would escape him. Hoffman now addressed me. 

“Well, sir, who are you?” 

“Larry Bowen of the staff of the American News. 
You will remember me as the one who brought you the 
green bottle in the case of the headless chorus girls.” 

“Oh, yes,”—he nodded—“now I recall you, though I 
haven’t seen you in such a long time that you have 
almost slipped out of my mind. But what are you 
doing here? Did I understand aright that the butler 
called you, ‘Doctor’?” 

I explained. As I began the butler, who had not 
caught all I told Dr. Hoffman when the latter came 
up, drew himself up, and his face became frigid. Even 
a butler can feel offended at such a deception. But 
after I had made the full statement, and he understood 
how circumstances had forced me to act as I did, I saw 
his face soften from its forbidding and stern lines. 

“Who was in the room when you got here?” the 
coroner then wanted to know. 

“Miss Oswald and the two maids. The butler 
followed me in.” 

I was then requested to explain in exactly what 
position the body lay when I first saw it, what each 
one present was doing, and just what was done later. 

I described the scene as well as I was able. 

“Who was with him when he was seized with the 
attack?” I noticed that the coroner used this term in 


22 


The Fangs of the Serpent 


preference to “poisoned.” It sounds much better, espe¬ 
cially in the case of one as great as Mr. Oswald. 

I didn’t know. Further, I had not thought of ask¬ 
ing. The butler spoke up. 

“Mr. Oswald was alone, sir. Immediately after 
lunch, he came up here by himself. I heard him tell 
Miss Oswald he wanted to study a while. It was his 
daughter who found him when she went up a little 
later.” 

So it was the daughter, Isobel Oswald, who had been 
the first to come upon the form of her father. What 
a shock it must have been,—to leave a lower room with¬ 
out a thought of trouble, to trip lightly up the stairs, 
then come suddenly upon her dead father! 

“Was the body as it is now?” was Hoffman’s next 
question. 

The butler did not know. 

Who did? 

Miss Oswald, to be sure. But the coroner evinced no 
disposition to send for her. After the nervous strain 
through which she had passed, she would be in no condi¬ 
tion to be questioned. It was unthinkable that he 
should intrude on her grief at this time. Perhaps he, 
too, felt this, though I have known him to get from 
those most deeply grief-stricken some vital point. 

Sullivan made a suggestion. Perhaps the maids, 
who had been with their mistress in this room, might 
know, he said. One of the officers was dispatched to 
find them and request them to favor the coroner with 
their presence. In a short time their steps were heard 
on the stairs. 

As they entered the room, the coroner motioned to 
Sullivan to place chairs for them, which he did in such 


The Fluttering Fragment 23 

a manner that their backs were to the body lying 
beneath the enshrouding tapestry. 

The first maid was dark and lithe, with a great 
wealth of black hair. She was neatly and tastefully 
dressed and appeared to be about twenty-five years of 
age. The other was round and plump, evidently a 
chambermaid, or of one of the kindred occupations. 
Her hair was as close to red as it could get without 
actually hitting that color. She wore a checked dress 
of some cheap-looking material, and an apron of blue 
gingham. There was something about this second 
maid, while she was neither untidy nor slack, that be¬ 
spoke a carelessness not noticeable in the first of the 
two. 

The coroner first addressed the blonde. 

“What is your name, please.” 

“Annie O’Regan.” 

“Ah, yes. Miss O’Regan. Well, what do you know 
about your master’s death?” 

The girl’s face grew blank and her eyes wide with 
terror, as she stared at her questioner. Hoffman 
recognized that his abrupt query had in some way been 
construed by her as an accusation. He set about allay¬ 
ing her fears. 

“Do not be frightened; there is nothing to fear. We 
are only asking for a little information. Please tell 
us where you were and what you were doing when your 
mistress found her father.” 

The girl was twisting her hands in her apron but 
when she understood what was wanted, she answered 
slowly and connectedly. But she had little to reveal. 

“I was helping the kitchen girl with the dishes, that 
being part of my work, when I heard Miss Oswald call. 


24j The Fangs of the Serpent 

It sounded queer but I didn’t think much of it then. 
It was only a few minutes later when I heard Elsinore 
here,” and she glanced at the other maid, 4 calling me 
to come. When I got here Mr. Oswald was stretched 
out on the floor with his eyes nearly shut and Miss 
Oswald was holding his head on her arm.” 

“No one else was there?” 

“No, sir. Just them two. Tasker came afterwards.” 

“Tasker?” 

“Yes, sir; the butler.” 

A few more questions touching on details of locations 
and the coroner turned to the other maid. 

“Your name is Elsinore?” 

“Indeed but yes, sir. Elsinore Trevecott,” and her 
eyes met Hoffman’s in a steady frank gaze. I noticed 
that Abe was giving this maid rather more attention 
than he had the other. As a judge of character, he 
must have felt that hers was one of the most alert 
intelligences in the room. 

Elsinore was pretty, a beauty in a way. Yet I do 
not think that she knew it; or knowing it, never let it 
obtrude; her words and actions showed no conscious¬ 
ness that she was other than a well-trained maid. 

“Did you come up to this floor with Miss Oswald?” 
As he put the question the coroner beckoned to an 
officer. When the latter approached, Hoffman gave 
him some directions in so low a tone that I did not 
catch what he said. The officer nodded and went 
quietly down the stairs. Elsinore had refrained from 
replying while Hoffman addressed his subordinate, but 
when the messenger had gone, answered at once. 

“No, sir.” Her voice was low and clear. “I did not 


The Fluttering Fragment 25 

come to the museum with her. I was in her room plac¬ 
ing garments in a drawer when I heard her call.” 

“You went at once?” 

She nodded in a dignified manner. “I was but a floor 
below and though her call was not loud, there was a 
ring of fear, or terror, yet not either, in her voice. It 
is difficult to tell just how it impressed me. I dropped 
everything and rushed to her. When I first entered I 
did not see her.” 

Coroner Hoffman glanced at the body; then half 
turned and looked at the door. The working of his 
mind was as plainly to be followed as though he had 
spoken. If she could not have seen her mistress as she 
came in, then the body could not have been found where 
it now lay. For, presumably, the daughter was beside 
her father, and he was then stricken; else why the call? 
He turned to the maid; there was no need to voice the 
unspoken question. She passed at once to an 
explanation. 

“Miss Oswald was just behind that wall,” and she 
indicated the east partition of the hall; “she was down 
by her father, attempting to raise his head.” 

The large room given over to the museum was 
oblong, the longer direction to the north and south. 
The stairs reached that floor at about the middle of 
the west side. At their top was the small, square room 
with the door opening into the museum in the north 
wall. The east and south walls were blank. 

Why anyone should build such a boxlike projection 
into a room, as was this hall, I couldn’t see. As I now 
think, it was doubtless to prevent unannounced in¬ 
trusions upon the owner while he was studying, though 


26 The Fangs of the Serpent 

he had built it ostensibly to shut off drafts and noises 
from below, as we found out later. 

It was from the museum wall of this east partition 
indicated by the maid that I had plucked the tapestry; 
and it was against this wall that the huge chest stood. 
Of course, if Miss Oswald was on that side of the hall, 
Elsinore could not see her until she had entered the 
door and passed around to that side. 

“And Mr. Oswald?” The coroner moved his chair 
a little farther to his right so that by turning he had 
an unobstructed view along the east side of the hall’s 
east wall. 

“He lay on the floor and hunched up. His legs were 
twisted under him and his arms were bent down under¬ 
neath his chest. His head had dropped forward and 
hung down. Miss Oswald was trying to raise it as I 
entered. If you desire that I do so, I can show you 
about how he lay.” 

The girl was very self-possessed. It seemed a most 
unusual offer. Yet was it? In times of stress, most 
persons will tender every aid and assistance, especially 
if unspoiled by life in a large city. The coroner 
accepted her offer with thanks. Leaving her chair she 
stepped over to the end of the large box. 

I judged from her efforts that it was a most difficult 
task to take the exact position in which J. Marion 
Oswald had lain, or even to assume one which in any 
way approximated it. When, at last, she did secure 
one that seemed to satisfy her, she retained it but a 
very few seconds, so cramped and constrained was the 
attitude she took. 

From her illustrating, Mr. Oswald’s feet were 
doubled under him as though he had been squatting or 


The Fluttering Fragment 27 

sitting in cross-legged fashion. Judged by appear¬ 
ances, when the poison struck him, he had lost control 
over every muscle and had sagged down into a dis¬ 
torted heap, his arms beneath him. He had not gone 
entirely to the floor. 

He had dropped at the north end of the chest, in 
the corner between it and the wall. His head, as shown 
by Elsinore in her posing, was against the tapestry, 
though this no longer was in the place from which I 
had torn it. It was the top and back of his head which 
had touched the fabric. From watching her, I got the 
impression that he was in a sort of sitting position 
with his head drooping upon his chest, when he lost 
consciousness and had oozed loosely into the corner. 

Elsinore, after rising, had turned again to Hoffman. 

“As nearly as I can represent it, he lay as I have 
shown you. He was partly against this end of the 
chest,” and she touched the north end, “and the wall. 
When Miss Oswald caught sight of me she called to 
come and assist her. We straightened her father out 
on the floor as you see him. I called Annie, then ran 
for a glass of water.” 

“When did the butler come in?” the coroner wanted 
to know. 

“He must have been on the stairs when I called. He 
was there when I returned. He is a little lame in 
climbing the stairs.” I noticed that the butler nodded 
gratefully at this. “Annie got there but a minute 
before him. We sent him for a doctor.” 

“Who did? Your mistress, you, or Annie?” 

“I did, sir.” 

“You didn’t use a phone when you had one in the 
house,” and the coroner gave his attention to the butler, 


28 The Fang's of the Serpent 

“but rushed out on the street and accosted Mr. 
Bowen?” The maid sought her chair. 

The butler showed his distress. Not that he moved 
body or limbs. He was too well trained for that; but 
his face paled, and the muscles twitched. 

“Yes, sir—yes, sir. I was so flurried by seeing the 
master lying there I just ran out of the house knowing 
that Dr. Conkey has his office in his home just across 
the avenue; then I saw this man and took him for a 
doctor.” 

The coroner accepted the explanation without com¬ 
ment ; just then the officer to whom he had spoken 
returned. 

“Yes, sir, he’s on the way,” I heard him say as he 
took up his position by the doorway. The coroner 
spoke to Dr. Templeton. 

“We’ll move his body down to his room. Jimmy is 
on the way.” 

“Jimmy,” I knew, could be none other than Jimmy 
Haslette, the department chemist; there was but one 
reason for calling him in. There was to be an autopsy 
and in an important case, such as this, Jimmy, an 
expert of the first water, would represent the coroner’s 
department. 

“No more inquiries will be made today,” and he 
addressed us collectively. “You may go now. You 
will all be summoned to the inquest, when we will in¬ 
quire more fully into Mr. Oswald’s death. I thank you 
for your full and complete replies given at this time,” 
and he nodded at us with a smile. 

“His room is on the first floor?” he questioned in 
answer to a query from Sullivan; and the butler, to 
whom the remark was directed, answered that it was. 


The Fluttering Fragment 29 

When he announced that the body might be moved, 
we men had all stepped forward to assist; but the 
coroner waved us ba,ck and told Sullivan and the two 
officers to lift it. 

Sullivan jerked the tapestry to one side, where it 
lay in a heap; the officers gave it no further regard, 
one of them stepping squarely into it. Elsinore, 
swiftly yet unobtrusively, reached down and drew it 
back; with steady, quick-moving hands, she began to 
fold it while the three representatives from the police 
department stooped to J. Marion Oswald’s form. 

Sullivan took the head, one of the officers took the 
feet while the other placed his arms about the middle 
of the body. With a gentleness unlooked for in such 
burly types, they raised him. As they did so a bit of 
paper dropped, hung for a brief second just beneath 
the form of the dead millionaire, then fluttered to the 
floor. 


CHAPTER III. 


THE SCENT OF THE WOODLAND. 

F ROM somewhere about the garments of the dead 
man, that torn scrap drifted away, twisted and 
eddied briefly, then dropped to the boards. I had been 
one of the group whom the coroner had requested to 
step back and let the officers handle the body. But I 
had chanced to stand between the corpse and the wall, 
and could move back but a short distance. A case 
filled with Indian weapons prevented movement to the 
right, while another of stone images from Oceanica 
checked my withdrawing to the left. 

So I chanced to be within a short step of the body 
as the paper dropped. It fell nearly at my feet and 
I stooped and picked it up. As I straightened up the 
coroner was already reaching out his hand to me. I 
placed the tiny bit in his palm, but in the brief second 
I had held possession of it, I had time to take one 
glance. That told me all the fragment had to tell. 

This detached portion was the corner off a sheet, 
the two straight edges with the roughly torn third 
side forming a right-angled triangle, perhaps an inch 
and a half on one of the true edges, two inches on the 
other. The paper was a coarse, common writing paper, 
usually coming in notebook form in which shape any 
five-and-ten-cent store can supply it in thousand lots. 
One side was without a mark, but on the other were 
a few typewritten letters. 


30 


The Scent of the Woodland 31 

There were four that stood out clear and distinct, 
and there had been a letter before these, but the slip 
was so torn that but a tiny part of this showed. It was 
this:— 



The letters were written by a machine using a black 
ribbon and the print of the typebars showed it to have 
been new, or nearly new. The fifth letter might have 
been almost any one except one of the letters having a 
projection at the bottom. 

I do not think that the two officers noticed what had 
happened, but Abe did. Still, he gave but a glance as 
he saw me pick it up, then resolutely turned his head 
away. He knew that if there was anything of im¬ 
portance connected with it, sooner or later he would 
hear of it. 

The body was carried below and when Jimmy arrived 
he, with the two surgeons, whom the coroner had re¬ 
quested to assist, prepared at once for the work. I 
later heard that Mr. Oswald’s personal physician had 
also been sent for and that he took part. Not a word 
was said to anyone. In a legal sense it is probable 
that the permission to undertake it should have been 
secured from the nearest relative, especially in the case 
of a man of the importance of J. Marion Oswald. In 




32 The Fangs of the Seepent 

ordinary deaths where there was doubt, the coroner 
had full right to go ahead; but—well, it took nerve in 
the present situation. 

By now I was a bubbling spring of the most violent 
emotion. Here was I, with the whole first page of my 
paper as my field, and I hadn’t sent a word in as yet. 
The death of one of America’s leading financiers in 
itself meant screaming headlines. But with J. Marion 
Oswald’s death went the word “poison” and the mystery 
of how it was administered. News—I should say it was 
news. And I, by a stroke of luck, was in it from first 
to last! I’ve turned in some pretty beats in my time, 
but never a one like this. 

I knew that as soon as my story began to flow in, 
an extra would be thrown together, for it was some 
hours before our main edition would be off the presses. 
If I could get by with it before the boys of the other 
sheets got wind of his death, what a sensation we should 
cause! As it was, it was only a miracle that three or 
four of the fellows had not trailed along behind the 
ambulance or followed Jimmy when he came. But for 
some reason, no one had as yet appeared. 

I hung about for half an hour, long enough to find 
out that I could learn little more, even after the doctors 
finished the initial stages of their work, then ducked 
out, hailed a passing taxi, and was whirled to the office 
at top speed. I might have phoned, but—there was a 
chance. I should have had to use a public phone; and 
who knows who might have listened in? It had been 
done before. I did not like to ask the use of the Oswald 
phone because of the peculiar circumstances of my in¬ 
troduction to the house. I might want to feel that I 
was welcome there at another time; so I thought best 


The Scent of the Woodland 33 

not to obtrude now. Had the head of the house been 
alive, I knew that I should not have found any mat with 
“Welcome” on it spread for my reception. In defer¬ 
ence to this feeling, I decided to carry the facts to the 
office in person. 

But I left my cornet-case. No, I did not forget it. 
It was left purposely. There might come a time when 
I would feel the need of a good excuse for calling 
again. It might remain for some days, or even weeks, 
but if this case developed as I thought it promised, 
I would have little use for it for some time. 

As I was driven hurriedly along the avenue, I turned 
over in my mind just what I knew about this death, 
for all I had been right at hand. And that was very 
little. 

First: J. Marion Oswald was dead. This was a 
matter of personal observation, corroborated by the 
two doctors. As in a case in court, I established my 
main fact first. This was a gigantic piece of news, even 
without the complications of how he died and why. 

Second: he had been poisoned. This I had not 
known, but one physician had affirmed it; the other 
had added confirmation to the first’s testimony. 
Wouldn’t it look great in ten-inch letters across the 
front page, “Millionaire Dies by Poison.” 

Third:—there I stopped. I had not another fact 
directly connected with the poison death, so far as I 
could tell. True, according to others, he had been 
alone in his museum when he died. Death must have 
come suddenly. Was the poisoning accidental or in¬ 
tentional? If the latter, was it self-administered or 
had it been given by some enemy with the intent to 
kill? 


34* The Fangs of the Serpent 

It might have been suicide. After all, perhaps he 
had owned some unknown worry or fear that induced 
him to hurry into another world before his years should 
end in the natural manner. I didn*t know of what 
poison he had died. It hadn’t struck me before, but 
now I realized that when the doctor had said “poison” 
I had jumped to a conclusion. Suppose that instead 
of what I thought, he had meant one that resulted 
from eating a tainted food. 

Shows how a fellow’s mind will go racing off. Called 
in to see a man whom I found dead, and hearing a 
doctor, brought in at my suggestion, declare that he 
had been poisoned, I had wandered away, mentally, in 
the bypaths of all sorts of fanciful romances. Yet my 
mind is sufficiently under control, and is well enough 
trained, so that imaginings do not get the upper hand. 

Yet, had it been a natural poison, would the doctors 
have been so serious? I doubted it, and again visions 
of revengeful men, whom J. Marion had beaten in a 
business deal, crawling up four-story walls and shoot¬ 
ing poisoned darts in the window at him, filled my 
mind: or of a mysterious messenger from the East, 
where J. Marion Oswald was a money-lender not above 
exacting an interest that gave to the word “usury” a 
new meaning, sneaking quietly up the stairs, touching 
his hand with a poison glove, and as mysteriously 
slinking away. 

My imagination was good; too good. In wrestling 
with fact, I had not the happy faculty of my old friend 
Cyrus Herron. He and I had been first associates in 
my younger days when we had worked together over 
the Episodes of the Supernormal. There, too, my 
imagination had raced ahead, without result. His did, 


The Scent of the Woodland 35 

but only the slight distance in advance necessary to 
reach the correct conclusions. He had, in addition, 
patience and a mind for detail that could eliminate. 
But he wasn’t here now; besides, there was nothing 
about this case to interest him. The psychic field was 
his realm. 

Yet there was another matter, too; a scrap of paper 
bearing a few letters appeared to have fallen from 
J. Marion Oswald’s clothes. This, in picking it up 
and handing it to the coroner, I had managed to scan. 

There were, I realized, a thousand chances that it 
had no concern with the death of Oswald to one that 
it had. So far as I knew, it might never have been 
seen by him while living. It might originally have been 
upon the floor and when his daughter and Elsinore 
placed him in the position in which I first saw him, it 
might have become entangled in his garments. Again: 
it might have been dropped by some of those about 
him and attached itself to his coat, dropping off only 
when he was raised. It even might have been dropped 
by Sullivan or one of the other officers. 

Granted that it had been seen by Mr. Oswald, there 
were still an enormous number of chances against its 
being other than a part of an ordinary missive. The 
letters even suggested the usual. 

I turned them over in my mind: “p—e—n—t”: 
common letters. Of what word could they be the 
termination? I thought over a long list but the only 
ones that came to me were “spent,” “serpent,” and 
“repent.” “Pent” is itself a word, but the glance I 
had secured, which was photographed upon my brain, 
showed that there had been another letter before 
the “p.” 


36 The Fangs of the Serpent 

Of these words, I felt that “spent” was undoubtedly 
the most likely, concerning—as it did—the life of a 
rich man. “Repent”; I wondered who would have nerve 
enough to tell old J. Marion Oswald to “repent.” 
“Serpent” would be clearly out of place; unless it might 
have referred to one he was buying for his collection; 
or to some antique, or jewelled work, in the form of a 
serpent. Had I been called upon to do any betting, 
my money would have gone down on “spent” as by far 
the most likely. Then too, possibly there were a dozen 
other words that didn’t come to me, that ended in 
“pent.” 

By this time I had reached the office; I dashed in, 
and things began to move.—But they did move! As 
I wrote the story line by line, boys kept it flowing back 
to the composing room. And others were digging up 
other matter. 

Our “morgue” yielded enough material to fill a dozen 
issues. It wasn’t what to put in; it was what to leave 
out. And pictures? For three Sundays we had views 
of J. Marion Oswald as a child, as a man, as a husband, 
as a father, as a widower. We ran plates of his plant, 
his business offices, his home, of almost everything under 
the sun with which he had been connected. It was a 
wonder we didn’t run a photo of the first hog his 
grandfather killed. 

Yet probably not one in a hundred of all the thou¬ 
sands who read our extra and the regular editions that 
followed, realized that all we had to tell was that J. 
Marion Oswald was dead; that the cause of his demise 
was poison. 

The chief had kept the lines hot while I wrote, try¬ 
ing to find out what the doctors had discovered, what 


The Scent of the Woodland 37 

the police were doing, what they thought, and what 
they were going to do. Without one single tangible 
result. However, we mentioned none of our efforts to 
get this news in the story we told; we don’t often take 
the public into our confidence when we fall down, 
though we do sound our horn rather loudly when we 
succeed. 

When the first of the extras began to roll off the 
presses, I started back for the Oswald home. But it 
was so late when I arrived that I merely had a short 
chat with the butler. 

“Miss Oswald has retired. Yes, the family physician 
had been in attendance upon her. No, Dr. Thompson 
was not here now; he left with the other doctors. No, 
they didn’t say anything to anyone except the coroner 
before they went. Yes, the undertaker had been here 
and had gone. Miss Annie and Miss Elsinore? Oh, 
they were about their work as usual.” 

Strange! In that great castle, the death of the 
mainspring, the master, had made but little difference 
in the life within; action had not stopped; everything 
was going on as usual. The daughter, the one on whom 
the breaking reacted most strongly, was at rest in her 
room. Doubtless the doctor administered a sedative. 
But for the rest, affairs moved forward, almost as 
usual. How greatly must the calm, dominating spirit 
of that great mind have influenced the minds of others 
with whom it came in contact, that they moved quietly 
along in their accustomed grooves even now, when the 
directing intelligence no longer acted; or else he had 
picked out faultless servants, keen, noiseless, brainy 
like himself. 

As all the information I could reasonably expect to 


38 The Fangs of the Serpent 

gain at the house had been furnished by the butler, I 
did not seek to enter farther. I was not sure it was 
other than a simple death through poison, or I might 
have asked permission to revisit the museum. In hopes 
of finding a “clue”? A “clue”—to what, for what? 

“Clues?” It makes me weary every time I hear of 
clues. I’ve watched the detectives on the city force 
long enough to realize in what esteem they hold “clues.” 
Oh, certainly, they give out “clues” in most mystery 
cases and the press retails them by the yard. But I 
never saw these investigators using one. If they have 
a hard nut to crack, if they must find some salient fact, 
they assume that someone knows; and they muddle 
around till they find that someone. The rest is easy. 

Thanking the butler for his kindness in answering 
my inquiries, I bade him good night and left. I decided 
to hunt up Alec Thompson. He was at home and had 
not yet retired. But he wouldn’t, or couldn’t, give me 
a hint. What tremendous power a man must have 
when he, dead, could influence a good friend of mine 
to hold his tongue and give me no information. But no, 
it couldn’t be that. 

“Doc,” I came straight at him, “you said he was 
poisoned. Do you know the poison?” 

He shook his head. “I may think I do, but I cannot 
be sure. Jimmy will make the official tests.” 

“Well, what do you think it is?” 

“Who’s inquiring,—my friend, Larry, or the press?” 

Of course I couldn’t urge him after that. I was 
on duty and any information given me, I was in duty 
bound to pass on to my paper. I left. 

Coroner Hoffman I couldn’t reach and Sullivan was 
off duty. There was little use seeing the officers; they 


The Scent of the Woodland 39 

probably knew less than did I. I, too, went home and 
to bed. 

When I took up my work again next afternoon I 
found on visiting the house that Abe Sullivan had been 
there before me. It developed that he had been sent 
by the coroner and as he had some time to wait, he said 
that he would like to see the museum. Which might be 
suspicious or it might not. It is just possible that he 
was developing the museum fever, though I never heard 
of his paying any particular attention to such institu¬ 
tions before. But perhaps I did him an injustice; he 
may have greatly admired the Assyrian tablets, the 
South American mummies, and the thousand other 
wonderful articles. 

In the Oswald home I found that plans for the 
funeral were going forward. Messenger boys were 
coming and going, and big cars were driving up and 
leaving; some deposited men of position; others, ap¬ 
parently, sent in only regards. So much'for the power 
of wealth to command attention, even in death. 

Coroner Hoffman had impaneled a jury and had 
complied with the strict requirements of the law. After 
viewing the body, they had adjourned to a more 
propitious time. 

That he had deemed it necessary to call together a 
jury meant much. In cases in which he was reasonably 
satisfied of the cause of the death, no such formalities 
were necessary; he simply announced the cause and 
that ended the matter. His action in the Oswald affair 
meant either that he didn’t know, or that J. Marion 
Oswald was so important a personage that he was 
unwilling to have it rest on his word alone. 

I attended the funeral. It was strictly private, yet 


40 The Fangs of the Serpent 

I felt an almost irresistible desire to be there. As a 
reporter I should have made it my business to get the 
details. But it wasn’t that. I felt a restless, uneasy 
longing to get back to the house. It puzzled me; I 
couldn’t account for it unless the mystery of Mr. 
Oswald’s taking off was oppressing me. 

Though the service was private, there were large 
numbers present; his old associates, his friends, his 
employees of the higher grades, filled ten large rooms. 
Relatives there were few; Isobel was the only near 
one left; two cousins and a few more distant, bore her 
company. 

In her black gown, as she sat there so still and white, 
I thought she resembled a great white lily; she wore no 
veil. Unshrinking, she met the gaze of the many; or 
was it unknowing? Did she grieve so deeply that she 
sensed not the presence of those about? Then as her 
eyes chanced to meet mine, I felt that she recognized 
me; and my heart stirred with pity. 

Many of those present were not unknown to me; 
financial and social Chicago had joined hands for this 
afternoon. There were yet others who I was certain 
were here at this “strictly private” affair only through 
curiosity. Even at a funeral of a great man, each 
guest cannot be asked to present credentials before 
being admitted. “In the presence of death, all are 
equal.” Yes, even to being admitted to the last rites. 
It is assumed that he who attends is a mourner. 

I was seated in an alcove which commanded a view 
of the brilliant divine who pronounced the eulogy. 
Near me were the head of Chicago’s largest bank, the 
coroner, the Mayor’s secretary, a prominent school 
teacher, among others. Mine was an end seat, and 


The Scent of the Woodland 41 

beside me was a young woman in black, with a long 
black veil. 

She looked as much like the chief mourner as did 
Miss Oswald. I said the woman was young, a piece of 
my impetuous deducing. The facts are that a form 
sat next me garbed in a woman’s dress, with a veil so 
thick that I caught no glimpse of the face beneath the 
wide-brimmed hat. But the shape was that of a 
woman, one that was not far along in years, for dur¬ 
ing the services I caught a glimpse of a small and 
dainty foot that was surely not that of a man, nor an 
elderly lady. 

I nearly made another rash statement. It was on my 
lips to add, “and she used a subtle and elusive per¬ 
fume.” When the scent first reached me I am not cer¬ 
tain, for I came to realize it was an odor while my 
mind had drifted off into the great out of doors. I 
seemed to be wandering in a deep woods, riotous in 
color, filled with sunshine and the music of woodland 
folk while over all hovered the intangible air of the fall, 
the indescribable breath of tingling ozone. 

The sense of smell is one of our most pleasing of 
memory senses; witness the Indian and his medicine 
bag. He feels, he sees, he smells the various articles 
therein contained; and each calls back to him a happy 
time of long ago. He realizes how large a part in his 
happiness the sense of smell played. So the faint fra¬ 
grance that reached my nostrils carried me back in 
fancy to the woodland on my aunt’s farm in Wiscon¬ 
sin, where as a lad I had spent many happy hours. 

I had no right to assume that the perfume was one 
used by the young lady. It is somewhat impolite to 
sniff in company; even a friend might resent an at- 


42 The Fangs of the Serpent 

tempt to locate a breath of fragrance; anyway, I’ve 
never tried it. For all I knew, the big banker two seats 
in my rear might be the source. Still, I did assume 
that the young woman was responsible for the agree¬ 
able odor, just as I felt that because she wore a 
woman’s clothes and had a woman’s foot, she was a 

woman. , 

After the services we stood as the casket, followed 
by the relatives, was borne from the house, then passed 
out. The lady in black was directly before me; she 
carried a dainty lace creation, misnamed a handker¬ 
chief, but made no move to use it. She never touched 
her veil. She preceded me down the steps and out 
upon the street; here she turned north; I went south, 
and saw her no more. 

I do not suppose that I would have noticed her at 
all, save for the heavy mourning, and for the use of 
the perfume,—if she did use it. As I walked, there 
kept recurring the pleasant days of sunny fall and late 
summer I had passed in woodland groves. What made 
up the smell I could not say. It might have been 
ripening fruits, grapes; or nuts; or yet flowers; any 
one or perhaps all three in combination. 

As these thoughts came back, so too, the memory of 
the woman. Why was she in black? Who was she and 
what attracted her to the funeral of J. Marion Oswald? 
I finally dismissed her with the feeling that she was one 
of that type of neurotics to whom burial services are 
an entertainment, a sort of “circus.” 


CHAPTER IV 


WHAT KILLED J. MAE ION OSWALD 

I N conformity with the notice sent us, the adjourned 
meeting of inquest convened at two o’clock in the 
afternoon of the following Monday. Doubtless in def¬ 
erence to Miss Oswald, it was held in the drawing-room 
of the Oswald mansion. The coroner and his aids, as 
well as the full jury, were present. 

The men impaneled by Hoffman were such as are 
seldom called to sit on his cases. He had gone into the 
upper walks of life and picked the biggest men. And 
that they served, and served willingly, was due solely to 
the prestige of the name of Oswald. Alive, he was 
power; dead, the glamor of his deeds, the strength of 
his mighty determination, reached upward from the 
grave and plucked his old associates from the bench of 
the counting house, the mart of the money changer, 
from every walk of high life; they came to serve him, 
not the commonwealth in whose name the jury was 
sitting. 

With a jury such as that, I told'myself, no verdict 
of suicide would be rendered, unless the case developed 
such strong evidence that any other would be impos¬ 
sible. For the honor of his name, it would take proof 
of the most positive character to make his business 
associates write down J. Marion Oswald as a self-mur¬ 
derer. Just what facts had the coroner and his assist- 
43 


44 ! The Fangs of the Serpent 

ants unearthed that pointed in that direction? Not a 
word had reached me; and when a man on the News 
can’t get a word loose anywhere, either there is none, 
or else someone has clamped the lid on tight. 

There were many newspaper men present. The ses¬ 
sion had to be public and each sheet was represented. 
Aside from these, and some of the curious public, we 
numbered less than a score. 

Of course Miss Oswald was present and by her side 
was a new face, but one that I knew; Stitmore Tithes 
had been her father’s consulting attorney ever since he 
left the University. In a time such as this, his place 
was by the daughter’s side. 

The servants, the entire force now, were seated about 
the room. I found that J. Marion Oswald’s staff was 
not nearly so large as I had surmised. In addition to 
the two maids and the butler, a third girl and two men 
made up his house force. 

Dr. Thompson sat beside the police surgeon. With 
the coroner was Dr. James Haslette, the chemist; in 
the background hovered the same two officers that had 
accompanied the coroner at the first call. Sullivan 
was nowhere in sight. Either his presence was unneces¬ 
sary, or he was completing some task before attending. 

The coroner was in no hurry to open the inquest. 
He sat talking with “Jimmy” until some minutes after 
two o’clock. When he rose to begin the inquiry, I was 
all atingle with anticipation. Or was it apprehension? 
For whom? Now, thought I, the cause of Oswald’s 
death will come out. I had been working nearly a week 
and all that I knew might be summed up in that first 
terse comment of Alec Thompson, “poison.” The 
coroner was speaking. 


What Killed J. Marion Oswald 45 

“The jury has been drawn in compliance with, and 
has fulfilled all the necessary provisions of, the law, in 
such cases made and provided. We are now sitting in 
this adjourned session to determine the true cause of 
his demise.” 

He paused and glanced from one doctor to the other 
as though debating which one to call first. 

“Death having been duly established by record or 
otherwise, we will now establish the moment of its 
occurrence.” Now he will call upon Miss Oswald, I 
thought. Instead he turned to me. 

“What time was it when you were called in? Can 
you fix it definitely?” I was surprised, but answered 
at once. 

“I left Dower Hall where the Lake Michigan Sym¬ 
phonic-” 

“Just a moment, please,” and he interrupted me. 
“It is my error and I apologize. But please take this 
chair,” and he indicated one at the table before him. 
I did so. “Now, your name and occupation. Some of 
the jury might like to know.” 

I smiled. It was at the gentleness with which Coro¬ 
ner Hoffman always presided over his inquests. There 
was nothing harsh or unkindly about the old man; his 
way with witnesses was somewhat apologetic; he was 
forever trying to put them at their ease, yet when he 
went after facts, he got them, if they were gettable. 

“Larry Bowen, of the American News.” 

I paused, thinking he might want to ask more, then 
receiving no sign from him, continued. He was not 
taking notes now; his stenographer attended to that. 

I had nothing to conceal, or to reveal, for that matter, 
so plunged ahead. 



46 The Fangs of the Serpent 

“The Lake Michigan Symphonic Orchestra, of which 
I am a member, had held a rehearsal at Dower Hall. 
On my way up the Avenue after this, I had passed a 
little beyond this residence, when some one at my elbow 
begged me to come with him.” 

“The time,” threw in the coroner. 

“I left the hall at one forty-five; allowing twenty 
minutes for the walk, it was two five when the butler 
called me.” 

“That is near enough for us. It took some time to 
get to the upper floor?” 

“Not to exceed five minutes.” 

“And Mr. Oswald was then dead.” As he made 
this as a statement, I merely nodded. “Thank you,” 
he went on as he started to dismiss me, then turned 
back. “You were at the rehearsal of an orchestra?” 

“Yes.” 

“You left at one forty-five, you stated. Isn’t that 
giving a rather short time for any musical work? I 
assume that rehearsal would not begin before one 
o’clock.” 

“Quite right. But our rehearsal had been held in 
the morning, from ten to twelve. That time suits its 
members better than any other, as all happen to be on 
night duty. After the members had been dismissed, 
the director, two or three others and myself went into 
the grill. Our meal over, we returned to the concert 
room to try out some disputed phrasings. In reality 
I was coming from lunch, but I had considered it as a 
rehearsal, and so stated it.” 

When I had finished he sent me back to my own 
chair. The butler and the two maids were then ques¬ 
tioned along the same line; they verified the time I had 


What Killed J. Marion Oswald 47 

given. He next called Dr. Templeton, the police sur¬ 
geon. After a few preliminaries he asked: 

“At what time did you reach Mr. Oswald’s side?” 

“Three-fifty. He was then dead. He had been dead 
at this time, about two hours. Not any over that 
period, I would state, nor very much under it.” 

“I see. That would place his demise at one-fifty or 
possibly two o’clock.” 

“Yes.” 

The coroner now looked toward Miss Oswald as 
though to confirm the statement of the doctor. As she 
made no objection, he presumed that the time had been 
fixed as approximately correct. Evidently he was try¬ 
ing to spare the daughter as much as possible. He 
now turned to Dr. Templeton with a new line of 
inquiries. 

“What was the cause of his death?” 

“The immediate cause was poison.” 

I saw Miss Oswald start; her face went pale. She 
clutched at her lawyer as though she needed support. 
The maids, too, appeared amazed. Only the butler 
kept his countenance. He had heard Dr. Thompson 
declare it, but neither of the maids or Miss Oswald 
had been present. 

It had been no secret; every paper in the city had 
mentioned it. Yet it did appear to surprise Miss 
Oswald. 

“Poison. What kind?” went on the coroner. 

“I am not certain. It is very rare, if what I think, 
and I have never before seen a death resulting from 
its use. I prefer not to say.” 

“But do you know how it was administered?” 

“Yes. On our first examination, neither Dr. Thomp- 


48 The Fangs of the Serpent 

son nor myself noticed the source of the infection. 
But at the later investigation, Dr. Haslette being 
present, we found the means. 55 

The doctor paused. How, I was asking myself, 
could a poison have been given the dead millionaire? 
Doubtless it was administered internally for I saw no 
outward signs. The doctor was continuing. 

“On the underside of his left forearm, two inches 
above the wrist, we found two minute punctures in the 
skin;—about the size that would be made with a darn¬ 
ing needle, 55 he added after a moment’s consideration. 

“On the underside of the wrist, 55 repeated the coro¬ 
ner. With Dr. Templeton, he went into the details, 
using a number of medical terms to bring out the exact 
situation. And I sat back, amazed, and considered the 
problem. Poisoned and through two small holes! Dr. 
Templeton finished his testimony and was resuming his 
seat when Stitmore Tithes halted him with a question. 

“Just a moment, Dr. Templeton. 55 The doctor 
faced the lawyer. “Do you believe that Mr. Oswald 
introduced the poison into his system himself?” 

The doctor looked for a moment at the coroner, then 
again meeting the eyes of the lawyer, he shook his head. 
“No,” he said, “I must say that I do not think Mr. 
Oswald took the poison intentionally.” 

Tithes was quick to see the evasion. “Do you think 
he might have taken it unintentionally, 55 he hurled 
back. 

Without a moment’s hesitation Dr. Templeton 
answered, “Yes. 55 

One of the jurymen, moved to follow the example of 
the attorney, asked: “Did you find any poison or any 
instrument anywhere near Mr. Oswald?” 


What Killed J. Marion Oswald 49 

“No,” explained the doctor. “I understand not. 
The coroner can answer the question. But let me add 
that if the poison used was what I think, Mr. Oswald 
would have no time to throw it away, nor to dispose of 
the tool with which the holes were made.” 

Dr. Thompson followed Dr. Templeton in giving 
testimony. He added nothing new to any phases of the 
case, merely corroborating what statements of mine 
he could, and confirming the opinions of the other 
physician. He, too, refused to name the poison. In 
only one respect did he differ from Dr. Templeton. 

Lawyer Tithes, at the conclusion of Alec’s testi¬ 
mony, asked the same question previously put to Dr. 
Templeton. Dr. Thompson’s answer had been an 
emphatic “No.” 

So far, all that had developed newly was the fact 
that the poison had entered Mr. Oswald’s system 
through two small punctures on the left arm just 
above the wrist and on the under side. I had no time 
for reflection as yet, but those two holes began to 
puzzle me. How could a man receive two stabs such 
as those, without knowing it? How could he hold his 
arm so that there would be where the blow would strike 
—unless—yes, unless he did it himself? Or unless it 
was done by some one very near to him and whom he 
had no cause to suspect? 

The latter possibility had not yet been mentioned. 
On the former, the two doctors most certainly did not 
agree. Templeton had hesitated, though perhaps to 
get the coroner’s consent before he answered; but he 
had hesitated. Thompson had not, not for an instant. 
Was he, then, the stronger in his belief? Did the 
strength of his belief make it any more correct? 


50 The Fangs of the Serpent 

Coroner Hoffman now placed Jimmy on the stand. 
Here we will find out what the poison is, if the police 
know it, I told myself. In fact, there appeared no 
good reason why, if they knew what it was, they should 
not have revealed its nature before. 

If they had made a secret of it, it was probably at 
the suggestion of Abe Sullivan. If it could be hurled 
suddenly before the witnesses he might, by watching 
their faces, get an idea as to who knew something of 
such a substance. If that were true, they must suspect 
murder. And if they were going to try it out, then 
the detective must be hovering about somewhere near. 
I had not yet seen him, but that did not mean that he 
was not present. 

Formalities out of the way, Dr. Haslette was quizzed 
as to the poison. Did he know what it was? He did. 

“What was the toxic medium by which Mr. Oswald’s 
life was snuffed out?” 

“Curari. A not unknown poison, and one from 
which death is practically instantaneous.” 

I was so interested that I forgot to watch the faces 
of the servants, as I had intended. Here, then, was the 
keynote. A hasty glance at the two doctors satisfied 
me that it agreed with their theory as to the poison. 
But there was a deeper look, a look of concern. 
Curari meant it was no suicide? Or . . . the coroner 
was going on. 

“But the other doctors testified that it entered Mr. 
Oswald’s system through two punctures in the wrist. 
Is not curari a poison that is only fatal when taken 
internally ?” 

“Far from it. In fact, just the reverse. Large 
quantities of it may be taken into the alimentary tract 


What Killed J. Marion Oswald 51 

with impunity. But if the most minute portion enters 
the circulatory system directly, it means death.” 

“Oh, then Mr. Oswald could not himself have taken 
it. It must have been administered by someone else,” 
and the coroner cast a rapid glance at Stitmore 
Tithes. 

“No, I am not prepared to affirm that. If one 
desires a rapid, painless death, by slightly scratching 
the skin of the arm, or reaching a vein or artery of 
the body with this poison, death will come with light¬ 
ning speed.” 

“You speak as one having some knowledge of curari, 
Dr. Haslette.” 

“Yes, I know it from a first hand acquaintance.” 
Jimmy hitched over to a new position in his chair. 
“But permit me to qualify my statement that it was 
curari. I have used that term because it appears to 
be that and yet not that. The tests made gave posi¬ 
tive reactions for curari. Yet there was a difference. 
This poison has all the powers of the one named, yet 
analysis shows it different from any samples of the 
drug hitherto described. The poison that was found 
would be curari with something added that did not 
check its virulence. Possibly, it is such a result as 
might be obtained by using a plant of the same genera 
as that commonly employed in making the poison, 
Strychnos toxifera, but of a different variety.” 

“You mentioned that you had an intimate acquain¬ 
tance with it,” and the coroner returned to a previous 
statement of Jimmy’s. 

“Yes, I’ve seen it used in the lands from which we 
secure our supplies, the northern countries of South 
America.” 


52 The Fangs of the Serpent 

Coroner Hoffman sat up and eyed his witness closely. 

“Seen it in use? Do you mean that you have seen 
men poisoned with it and die from its effects ?” 

Jimmy shook his head and explained. 

“No, not that. I have not seen it used on men, nor 
did I intend to convey such an idea. The use to which 
I refer is that for which purpose it is manufactured: 
to kill animals. Just after I left school, I spent two 
years in the wilds of northern South America. It is in 
those parts that the poison is made. The Indians who 
produce it, anoint their arrows for use in hunting, 
with curari. It kills, but animals secured through its 
use are perfectly wholesome.” 

Perhaps. Yet I don’t think I’d care to eat the meat. 
By the look of repugnance which flashed across her 
face, I surmised that the same thought was in Isobel 
Oswald’s mind. Jimmy rambled on. 

“So when I say I have seen it in use, I refer to its 
effects on animals. It was only after I had been some 
time in the country and had become well acquainted 
with one of the tribes employing it in hunting, that 
they permitted me to accompany them on an expedi¬ 
tion, and see it in action. My first experience of seeing 
an animal killed with curari impressed me very 
strongly. Shall I give the details, that you may 
gather something of its effect?” 

The coroner was listening closely while seemingly 
writing a note. “Go on,” he said at once. 

“The animal was a buck, a rather large one. The 
natives’ weapon is a blowgun, a long hollow pipe made 
of a reed, through which they blow a very tiny arrow. 
They have developed great skill in its manipulation. 
The distance over which the dart can be sped, and the 


What Killed J. Marion Oswald 53 

accuracy, is marvelous. We crept up to within shoot¬ 
ing distance, and one of the hunters pointed his blow¬ 
pipe forward. A slight puff, and I caught a glimpse 
of the deathdealing barb as it started, but at once lost 
sight of it, so small was it. Almost as soon as the 
point was blown, the Indians left their concealment 
and calmly walked up to the deer. It made no move, 
nor looked in any direction. It stood in its tracks 
making no attempt to run. In its large eyes was no 
terror of us; for a space, possibly thirty seconds, it 
stood, then dropped. In a few moments it was dead.” 

“Then you infer that its action is not instantane¬ 
ous, ,r the coroner inquired, as Dr. Haslette ended his 
description. The official was referring to the poison. 

“Well, that depends upon what you mean by instan¬ 
taneous. Also, on the strength of the mixture. If you 
mean death within two or three minutes, I say yes. As 
to how strong the curari is I can report that I devel¬ 
oped a solution from the test specimens, and guinea- 
pigs inoculated with it were dead in fifteen minutes, 
though they never moved after the poison touched 
them. Pigs into which the pure, strong mixture from 
the forests is injected, are most certainly dead, even 
before the needle can be withdrawn. Curari seems to 
paralyze.” 

“What would you think in the case of Mr. Oswald?” 

“Not knowing the source or the strength of the 
curari administered, I cannot answer.” 

Suddenly I sat up. Jimmy’s description of the 
dying deer, its large, fearless eyes, roused a sleeping 
memory. My glance into the dying—or was it dead— 
man’s eyes recurred to me. 

“Pardon me, a moment,” I put in, rising and ad- 


'54 The Fangs of the Serpent 

dressing the coroner. “I have a fact to offer that may 
be germane to the inquiry. While examining Mr. 
Oswald on that afternoon, in testing for death I looked 
at his eyes. Their luster and lack of dullness was at 
once apparent. It seemed to me that back of them was 
the light of reason; it was as though he were trying to 
speak, or to look at someone or something.” 

The coroner referred my statement to Jimmy, who 
promptly said that there was little doubt but that 
such a thing was possible; that the person might be 
dying or dead, save as to the mind, some time before 
full death occurred. The other doctors, on being 
appealed to, agreed with Dr. Haslette; though he was 
the only one competent to speak with any authority. 

“Is it possible to obtain curari in this country? 9 the 
coroner asked. 

“Yes,” the department chemist explained. “Much 
is imported each year. It has medicinal value, being 
used in minute doses in counteracting the effects of the 
bite of an animal afflicted with rabies; also, sometimes 
in tetanus. Anyone, with a physician’s prescription, 
could get it. I know of no stock at the present, but it 
is listed as an importation.” 

“Is it a liquid easily carried about?” While Jimmy 
was answering, the coroner sent out of the room by 
one of the officers the note which he had finished. 

“No,” replied the expert to the question. “It is a 
resinous substance and unless a tiny portion could be 
introduced directly, a solution would have to be pre¬ 
pared. In color curari is black with a tinge of brown; 
it has a shiny appearance, like some gums, and is very 
brittle; when it breaks it splits into tiny flakes. I 
incline to believe that the brittleness has much to do 


What Killed J. Marion Oswald 55 

with its virulence. The finer it splits, the more quickly 
the blood dissolves the minute particles.” 

“Then sometimes it is a liquid, sometimes a solid. 
Which form resulted in Mr. Oswald’s death?” 

Dr. Haslette was in no hurry to answer. He con¬ 
sidered it for some little time, tapping the fingers of 
his left hand on the table before him, before he replied. 
What he really thought may have had a bearing, or 
may not, but his answer, when it came, was disap¬ 
pointing. 

“It cannot be known, definitely. I may think one 
thing, but I cannot know. Action would be the same; 
the absorbing of the curari into the blood, then death. 
This comes by paralysis of the terminations of the 
motor nerves. You will know what that means. Loss 
of every movement. The nerves which control the 
lungs stop acting; the lungs no longer function; death 
results from suffocation.” 

The poor girl, listening to all this testimony, gave 
a great sob. She, too, realized what it meant. Her 
father had died of suffocation. All alone, with no 
woman intimate to appeal to, how great was her sor¬ 
row! Used as I am to tears and trouble, inured to 
scenes of suffering, yet my heart ached for Isobel 
Oswald. Possibly the coroner also had her in mind, 
for the next question brought a mite of cheer. 

“Then Mr. Oswald died in the manner described. 
Was death painful?” 

“Not at all, if we may judge from numerous experi¬ 
ments on animals. It is a calm, easy, peaceful way of 
crossing into the far land. The agony of suffocation 
is entirely lacking. What seems to be needed is not 


56 The Fangs of the Serpent 

only the power to breathe, but the desire. Death 
comes more easily than falling asleep.” 

This line of inquiry was followed for some time with 
several questions on various phases of the action of 
curari. During these Abe Sullivan came in and took 
a chair beside the coroner. As the officer returned at 
the same time, the inference was that the note had been 
for the detective. He spoke no word but as he sat 
down, in reply to a look flashed by the coroner, he 
shook his head. 

There was one final question, then Jimmy Haslette 
was permitted to retire. 

“How long does the poison retain its power; how 
long does it keep its ability to kill?” 

“No one knows,” was Jimmy’s assertion. “I wouldn’t 
want to risk my life against a spear that had been 
poisoned a thousand years previously. But as for 
actual knowledge, what we know of curari is of so 
recent obtaining, that we are in no position to make 
definite statements.” 

As Jimmy retired, the coroner politely requested 
Miss Oswald to take his place. 

The unfortunate girl was near collapse. Had I been 
her adviser, or had I possessed the right, I would have 
forbidden her being questioned at this time. No one 
else made objection, and, white as paper, she straight¬ 
ened up and came forward. Stitmore Tithes assisted 
her to her feet, then made as though to walk forward 
by her side, supporting her; but she declined his prof¬ 
fered assistance, motioning him to remain in his seat. 

As she marched proudly erect, to the table, I caught 
something of the indomitable will of the house of 
Oswald. She, the last branch of her father’s tree, up- 


What Killed J. Marion Oswald 57 

bore the honor of the name. Though the female of 
the species may be a weakling, nothing in her carriage 
or demeanor showed other than strength and courage. 
“Like father, like son.” No, far oftener it is “like 
father, like daughter.” From mother to son, from 
father to daughter, descend those traits of strength. 
The mantle of J. Marion Oswald had fallen upon 
worthy shoulders. 

Erect, her slender figure swept forward. But her 
face was white, deadly white; she could not have ex¬ 
hibited more pallor had she been the one to press the 
poison into the veins of J. Marion Oswald. 


CHAPTER V. 


A GHOSTLY VISITANT. 

M ISS OSWALD approached the chair designated 
for those giving testimony, but she did not sit 
down. Facing the coroner, she burst out in passionate 
protest. Her voice was the same low, sweet music that 
had first greeted my ear, like the wind playing on the 
strings of a harp; but now it was pitched in a minor 
key, torn with anguish. 

“Oh, sir, why wasn’t I told that father had been 
poisoned? How could you bring me here to surprise 
me with it, at such a time as this ?” and she seemed on 
the verge of tears; but they did not come. 

Coroner Hoffman was nonplused. Instead of put¬ 
ting a question, he had met one that I fancied would 
be rather difficult for him to answer. I sympathized 
keenly with Miss Oswald, but I, too, recalled a lack of 
openness on the part of the coroner’s department; 
they had kept the knowledge of the name of the poison 
away from me, when I had been in on every other 
point. 

“My dear Miss Oswald,” and the coroner rose from 
his chair and walked to her side, “I am more grieved 
than I can tell you. Had you consulted me, gladly 
would I have told you all we knew. I was unaware that 
you did not know that your father had died from the 
effects of poison. We made no attempt to conceal 
58 


A Ghostly Visitant 


59 


the fact. We only kept to ourselves the means and 
the nature of the agent, until we were certain that we 
knew. I supposed that everyone knew what had been 
published in all the papers-” 

“At a time when father had just left me, can you 
think that I had time for newspapers? Oh, I could 
not, I could not! And now to hear that father was 
poisoned! I had believed that it was paralysis. In 
that Dr. Thompson specializes.” 

The unfortunate girl! With a griping pain at his 
breast, Larry Bowen would have desired to creep up 
and crave absolution. For it was I that had suggested 
calling in Dr. Thompson, and it was through my re¬ 
mark, “He is a specialist in paralysis,” that she had 
been led to believe that her father’s death was the result 
of such a seizure. 

I saw it all now; not a soul to tell the bereaved child 
that her father had died from poison. She had not 
been in the room when Dr. Templeton first made the 
statement; nor had either of the maids; neither had 
any of these heard Dr. Templeton confirm his col¬ 
league’s diagnosis. The only member of the household 
who might have imparted the news to either Miss 
Oswald or her maids was the butler; and he did not 
impress me as a man much given to talking. 

“I am sorry, Miss Oswald,” the coroner repeated. 
Then gravely placing his hand on her shoulder, he 
added, “Had I known, I would gladly have explained 
the matter to you, myself. But there can be no doubt 
of the cause of his death. It was, as you have heard, 
curari, and entered his system through the two holes.” 

If possible, Miss Oswald straightened up taller, 



60 The Fangs of the Serpent 

threw her head back, looked him full in the face; her 
features were calm and filled with a grim confidence.. 

“Then,” and her low tones filled the room, “find his 
murderer. Find him, no matter what the cost. Is a 
reward necessary? Then offer it; any amount; ten 
thousand, a hundred thousand, five hundred, more; 
anything, any amount, but find the man who did it.” 

The coroner backed away in surprise. 

“No, no, Miss Oswald. No reward is necessary; 
any such sums as you mention are preposterous. 
Every avenue will be searched, every means taken to 
apprehend him, if there is a murderer. It is the duty 
of the police to find the guilty party, or parties. The 
justice of the law is evenhanded. Just as resolutely 
will the police department attack the problem and find 
the slayer of a poor child in the tenements, and with as 
much persistence, as the assassin of a millionaire. 
There is no need of a reward as yet. If, after this jury 
renders its verdict, the police should fail—and they are 
but human—then would be the time. It might bring 
information from some one who, otherwise, would 
remain silent.” 

It sounds fine, I told myself; but I winked the other 
eye when the coroner told of the police not working for 
a reward. B-U-N-K. I wish I might have shared in 
some of the rewards they divided. But Hoffman was 
again speaking. 

“On the other hand, possibly your father was not 
murdered.” 

Miss Oswald countered immediately. 

“And under no circumstances was it suicide.” 

“Quite true,” admitted the coroner. “But beyond 


A Ghostly Visitant 61 

these two means is a third: It might have been acci¬ 
dental.” 

“An accident? Why, on such a theory, how could 
those two pricks get in his arm?” 

“That we do not know as yet, Miss Oswald. It is 
that we are trying to find out. If you will kindly 
answer a few questions and will tell us everything you 
may think of that might have a bearing on his death, 
we may arrive at the solution of the matter. And now, 
will you not please be seated?” 

Miss Oswald obeyed. The burst of feeling to which 
she had given way, had quieted her. She readily com¬ 
plied with his request and in response to questions, told 
of events on that fatal day. She described how her 
father had left the dinner table with a jest on his lips, 
and had gone up to the museum, how she had been busy 
for an hour, then had tripped to the upper floor to ask 
him about a ball they had planned on giving, how she 
had gone into the room and, not seeing him, called, 
then stepped forward only to find him all in a heap, 
how she had sent for aid, and how assistance had come. 
The remainder of her story was but a repetition of that 
told by the rest of us. 

The coroner then began to inquire somewhat 
minutely into the home life of herself and her father. 
She told how they passed the days, and how her worry 
over her father had increased lately; for since he had 
retired, she feared that paralysis might attack him, as 
it attacked many men who, having led active lives all 
their years, retired and beame inactive in old age. 

“Father was interested in so many things. Years 
ago he began on his museum; it represents a great sum 
but a still greater effort on his part. Within the past 


<52 The Fangs of the Serpent 

two years he became attracted to the occult; his studies 
in spiritism developed in him strong mediumistic powers 
and he and I have passed many an evening in com¬ 
munication with spirits from the realm beyond. Oh, I 
wonder if he will get a message back to. me now,” and 
tears filled her eyes. 

How that company of hard-headed officials and 
reporters sat up when she revealed the trend of J. 
Marion Oswald’s latest hobby. Spiritism! Ghosts— 
long white things in a fog! Slate writing! Spirit rap¬ 
ping ! I have no doubt a score of similar ideas rose in 
the minds of her hearers. I know there did in mine. 

Did my fellow workers of the press smack their lips? 
Did they! Over a juicy morsel like that! What didn’t 
it mean to them! So , in addition to his other fads, 
Oswald, the multimillionaire, tried to raise ghosts. 

Even the coroner, schooled to unusual happenings, 
failed to repress the look of surprise that flashed over 
his features. Evidently the doings of Mr. Oswald 
along this line were news to him, too. But he did not 
fail to seize the opening offered. 

“You say that your father was a student of psychic 
phenomena and was something of a medium himself.” 

“Oh, yes. Of course in the beginning he consulted 
others, the foremost in these lines. But for over a year 
he has neither been near them nor had them come to 
him.” 

“You are sure of this?” 

“Certainly; he told me so.” 

“Did you and he ever receive communications pur¬ 
porting to come from the other world?” 

“Many times, as I told you before.” She spoke in a 
matter-of-fact tone. So casual was it that we inferred 


A Ghostly Visitant 


63 


that these had become so common with her as to be 
accepted as the usual. “When father first became in¬ 
terested, he was very careful to conceal his identity 
whenever he visited a medium. He never had Henry 
drive him within blocks of the place; and still further 
to conceal his personality, he always dressed differ¬ 
ently for each visit. I am sure he was successful in thus 
disguising himself. He never received a letter from a 
single one of the professionals consulted. I am posi¬ 
tive he would have told me if they had written; nor 
have any of the mediums on whom he called visited our 
house.” 

“When you first spoke, you mentioned something 
about their coming to him.” 

“Yes. When he desired more sittings with any cer¬ 
tain medium, he had her come to a flat on 19th Avenue. 
Father took the whole of one floor, furnished and 
ready for use, in a residence there. But this going to 
others he had abandoned a year ago. Since then, he 
himself has been the medium. In the beginning we 
experienced much difficulty. Slate writing, automatic 
writing, rappings, every possible means we tried, but 
with indifferent success. Within the last few months, 
however, he had succeeded. His success took the form 
of materializations; we were getting excellent results.” 

The coroner had resumed his seat and now leaned 
far back. He gave a false appearance of being little 
interested in what Miss Oswald was saying. Yet he 
ceased not to delve deeper and deeper with every 
question. 

“Ah, yes. Materializations. What form did they 
take? I assume that you were present, you speak so 
confidently.” 


64 The Fangs of the Serpent 

“Many times. The materializations were always of 
the same personality. After a few experiments father 
got so he could summon this spirit. We tried it many 
nights. Sometimes we called her every evening of the 
week, but she did not always come. We were following 
a definite line of questioning of which father hoped 
great things.” 

“Where did you hold the seances ? That is, on what 
floor and in what room?” 

“On this floor in father’s study just off his bed¬ 
room.” 

“Did the friend from the other world have a name?” 

“She answered to that of Deborah.” 

Miss Oswald settled back in her chair and for half 
an hour explained more or less in detail what the mes¬ 
sages had been. The queries of the coroner brought 
out that they were the usual medley of facts from the 
life of the sitter; things which perhaps had been for¬ 
gotten, or that were known to one person, alone; 
prophecies of the future and guiding advice for daily 
tasks, yet all somewhat vague even when retold by Miss 
Oswald, who clearly believed in them. 

“Do you retain the very first message your father 
received through the spirit,” the coroner wanted to 
know. 

“Oh, yes. It is easily recalled, for it was one of the 
signs that Deborah had come; she always opened her 
communications with the same phrase. Father said 
that it was a summons for him, that it meant he had 
not long for this world, but I thought that was going 
too far in interpreting it.” 

“But what was the message, Miss Oswald?” 


A Ghostly Visitant 65 

“‘Do not forget, Marion: before it is too late, 
repent/ ” 

“Oh, yes.” As she spoke it, the coroner wrote it 
down, then leaned forward and carefully read it to her. 

“ ‘Do not forget, Marion.’ That must have been 
your father. Marion was his name.” 

Miss Oswald inclined her head. 

“ ‘Do not forget’ what? Did he ever say?” 

‘No. I do not believe that he knew just what she 
meant, either.” The coroner went on. 

“‘Before it is too late, repent.’ Of what? Or was 
that, too, something of a mystery?” 

Again Miss Oswald signified that it had been. Hoff¬ 
man dropped this line and entered upon a new one. 

“How did you get the message? Was it written?” 

“Oh, no. She always spoke. Slowly, with an effort, 
and her voice was very faint, seeming to come from 
a very great distance away.” 

The coroner arose and stepped nearer Miss Oswald. 
Dropping two fingers into his vest pocket he fished 
about a moment, then produced the small, tom paper 
that I had picked up from beneath the body of Mr. 
Oswald as it was being lifted. 

“Did you ever see this before,” he asked. 

She put forth a hand and took the slip. She looked 
at it with interest, turning it over and over, then spoke 
the word, or part of a word, written there. 

“ ‘Pent,’ ‘pent,’ that means dammed back, confined. 
No, to my certain knowledge, I never saw this tiny 
piece of paper before. What does it mean? Where 
was it found?” 

“We do not know its meaning. It was discovered 


66 The Fangs of the Seepent 

beneath your father’s body in the museum,” the 
coroner explained. 

Miss Oswald was startled. “What I” she cried. Her 
eyes roved about over the company and rested for a 
moment on mine. How I wanted to go to her, to help 
her. Was the coroner leading her into a trap? Non¬ 
sense, I thought. He has nothing, can have nothing 
against her. At last her glance returned to the official. 

“Oh, I see,” she said. “Then you think this is con¬ 
nected with his death. But why ‘pent’?” She studied 
the slip again. “Oh, yes; it is the end of a word. 
Why, ‘repent’ is such a one, the very last of the 
message Deborah always left us. Do you think that 
father might have written it down and this is part of 
it? Did you find the rest of the sheet?” 

“No, it has not yet been discovered.” 

“But this type doesn’t look like that from the 
machine father has here. It is distinctly different.” 

“We believe that the type which made that impres¬ 
sion were on a Densmore machine,” Hoffman explained 
to her. 

“Oh, then father cannot have written it, for his was 
an Oliver. It is of the same model as the one I have 
in my room, a number five.” 

Stitmore Tithes added a word. “And the machine 
used by Mr. Oswald’s secretary at his office in the 
Exchange Building is an Underwood. All those used 
at the firm’s place of business, as well as in the factories, 
are Remingtons. It so chances that in our offices we 
also use the latter machine.” 

The coroner thanked him, then turned to Miss 
Oswald. 


A Ghostly Visitant 67 

“It thus appears that your father did not write 
this. Have you any idea as to who did?” 

She had not. With this final question she was per¬ 
mitted to return to her chair. The maids followed 
each other in quick succession in the seat at the table. 
Their testimony gave us nothing new. It but cor¬ 
roborated that already heard. The butler came next. 
His name was Joshua Tasker, sir, and he had been in 
service for forty-eight years, beginning in Lord Scan¬ 
lon’s employ when but fifteen years of age. Yes, sir; 
Lord Scanlon lived near Lunnon. His testimony added 
but little to the mass already gleaned, but he confirmed 
the materializations. 

“Yes, sir. I have seen the spirit, sir. One night 
I had need to visit Mr. Oswald’s room at about ten 
minutes to twelve. As I entered the room, I saw a 
figure all in white glide across the room and disappear.” 

“Glide,” the coroner interrogated, puzzled. “What 
do you mean by glide? Just how did it move? Where 
did it disappear?” 

“Well, sir, it didn’t seem to walk. It sort of floated 
through the air, like, and gradually raised up. It 
disappeared through the side of the room.” 

“Which side?” 

“The side that overlooks the south, sir. It is the 
outside wall of the house. There are two large windows 
in it.” 

“Hum, windows! Two of them.” 

“Yes, sir, and they were both locked. I know ’cause 
I went and looked at them, sir. It is my duty to see 
that all doors and windows are fastened up for the 
night, sir.” 

“And Mr. Oswald and Miss Isobel were in the adjoin- 


68 The Fangs of the Serpent 

ing study holding the seance when you saw her? 

“Oh, no, sir. They were not at home.” 

A new thought. So Deborah did not confine her 
visits strictly to calls from Mr. Oswald but materialized 
occasionally on her own responsibility. 

“Were you not frightened when you encountered the 
apparition? Had you no fear of the ghosts?” inquired 
Hoffman. 

“Oh, no, sir. It is not for the like of me to meddle 
in the affairs of my master. If he has spirits to visit 
him, they would want nothing to do with folks like 
me, sir. No, sir. They would not disturb me. Ghosts 
could be sociable if they wished, but servants have not 
time for such things.” 

Tasker was excused. The chauffeur was called. He 
was Henry Deltour. No, he knew nothing about the 
apparition. No, he had never been in the museum. No, 
he could assist in no way. But under questioning, he 
did confirm Miss Oswald’s statement that he had never 
driven Mr. Oswald to a medium’s house or office. Often 
he had seen him get out and walk away, though of 
course he did not know where Mr. Oswald was going. 

The other servants had nothing to offer. The maid 
with whom Annie O’Regan had been when she had heard 
her mistress call and, later, Elsinore Trevecott’s voice, 
made good all the testimony Annie had given. 

Coroner Hoffman now called on Abe Sullivan. I 
wondered if the psychic phenomena as detailed by Miss 
Oswald had made much of an impression upon the 
detective. Had he known of this latest hobby of the 
master of the house? Probably not. 

The questions now turned back to the death and its 
cause. 


A Ghostly Visitant 69 

“Did you ever see a case of curari poisoning before?” 
the coroner asked Abe. 

“No.” 

“What about this case impressed you most?” 

“The two holes in the wrist.” 

“What about them?” 

They were much smaller than would be made by a 
snake’s fangs, unless the snake were very small,” Abe 
explained. “They were one and one-half inches apart. 
It is their position that impresses me.” 

“How could they be inflicted in such a place?” 

“I don’t know. I made various experiments, but 
unless I was willing, no one could strike me there, on 
the inside of the wrist; this place is too protected. 
Also, I found it difficult to place my arm, while using 
it, in a position that w T ould expose it to such an acci¬ 
dent, unless I extended it high above my head.” 

“You examined the museum thoroughly?” 

“Yes. The whole house, as well,” Sullivan affirmed. 

“You found the curari? Or the container that held 
the drug?” 

“No, neither. Nor have we found any druggists 
or wholesale drug dealers who have sold any for over 
three months.” 

“Did you find any traces of curari in the museum?” 

“Yes. There were two arrows which had tips that 
had been poisoned with it. But these could not have 
been used,” Sullivan explained, “for both were broad 
and made of stone. We tested the points and, while 
the curari remained, the arrows, if used, would have 
made a wound an inch wide.” 

“Where were the arrows ?” 

“In a case near the north wall, thirty-one feet from 


70 


The Fangs of the Serpent 

where the body was found. The case was locked and 
to open it we got the keys from Mr. Oswald’s secretary 
who took them from the safe in the office where they 
are kept.” 

“Were there other poisons in the museum?” 

“In the Rattlesnake Dance group were the mounted 
rattlers. Among a group of spears marked, ‘From 
Africa,’ we also found three poisoned lances. Guinea- 
pigs inoculated with a solution made from scrapings 
from these spears, all died but under far different 
conditions from those scratched with a curari-treated 
scalpel. We tried several of the guineas on the fangs 
of the rattlers. The pigs all lived.” 

“Did you investigate everything in the museum?” 

“We tried to. There are too many articles to study 
every one. So we assumed that no accident could 
have happened from any object locked behind glass, 
and gave our time and interest to the articles outside 
of cases. We paid particular attention to everything 
near where Mr. Oswald was found.” 

“Any results ?” 

“None. The tapestry that had hung on the wall 
had neither metal stitches nor metal in its makeup. 
The dyes used in coloring the threads were harmless. 
The huge chest had no broken or jagged edges. We 
opened it. It contained nothing. The mounted armor 
was very rusty, but harmless.” Abe continued for 
some time cataloguing and explaining what had been 
the results of his examination of probably fifty articles 
that were within ten feet of Mr. Oswald’s body when it 
was found. The coroner now approached the human 
element in his questioning. 

“Would it have been possible for someone to have 


A Ghostly Visitant 71 

entered by a window, or to have shot an arrow from 
one?” 

“How would the arrow have been withdrawn? No, 
there is no chance of such a thing. We looked at every 
window. Only one opens on a fire-escape. This is to 
the rear of the house and the escape drops into a small 
flower garden. This is almost continually under the 
eyes of one or the other of the maids in the kitchen. 
Also, the house-man spends much of his time working 
about the rear of the house. No one could scale the 
other walls; and had they managed to do it, the windows 
would have been found locked.” 

“The roof?” 

“Is pointed; very steep. No entrance through it 
to the upper floor, the museum.” 

“Have you any knowledge to add concerning the 
fragment of paper picked up?” 

“No.” 

“Each typewriter has an individuality of its own, 
differing even from others of the same make, has it 
not?” 

The detective nodded. 

“Will you not, then, be able to identify the very 
machine that wrote those four letters, p-e-n-t?” 

“If we get the machine, yes. But we are not going 
to run all over Chicago looking at thousands, perhaps 
tens of thousands, of Densmores in use. Even if we 
did, we might miss the very machine that made the 
letters. Besides, we do not know but that the slip was 
written outside of Chicago.” 

A few more formalities, questions by Mr. Tithes, 
some queries by different ones among the jury, and 
Coroner Hoffman herded these latter into another room. 


^2 The Fangs of the Serpent 

In a brief space they reached an agreement on a verdict 
and returned while it was read to us. 

“We find that J. Marion Oswald came to his death 
by poisoning with curari introduced into his left arm 
by some person or persons to the jury unknown. 

As we were preparing to leave, Miss Oswald came o 
me holding out her hand. 

“I have never had the pleasure of an introduction to 
you, Mr. Bowen,” she said, “but after all you did for 
me in my time of trouble, I feel that I know you.^ Let 
me thank you most sincerely for your assistance.’ 

“It was nothing, Miss Oswald,” I told her as I took 
her hand and held it in a period all too brief. “At 
any time, or in any w^ay that I can be of use to you, I 
am at your command.” I would have liked to add much 
more but—well, I have a little sense, praise be. 

“Will you not call some time shortly? I wish to 
talk over with you the offer of a reward. I^am sure 
that the coroner did not understand my offer. 

Stitmore Tithes had come up behind her. Now he 
moved up to her side. “Oh, no, Miss Oswald,” he broke 
in, ignoring me altogether, “I am sure that the coroner 
was right.” His voice was smooth and silky. “A 
huge offer such as you wish to make would only attract 
everyone who might hope by chance to hit on the 
solution of how your father came to his death.” 

Why did he have to come buttng in just then? Why 
did he oppose a reward? I did a little ignoring myself. 

“Oh, yes, Miss Oswald,” I explained, “I can see 
many reasons why a reward would be a good thing. 
It will get all the information that is out. It gets it 
not only from people who want to sell it, but also 
reaches those who do not want money for what they 


A Ghostly Visitant 


73 


know. The wide advertising such an offer gets 
does it.’* 

“Thank you, Mr. Bowen,” and she rewarded me with 
a faint smile. “You will come and see me soon, will 
you not?” I promised. Had I dared, I’d have been 
back the next day; but I didn’t go for some time. 

When Miss Oswald turned to introduce me to Tithes, 
he had slipped away and was busy talking to the 
coroner. A rather odd look overspread her features 
but she said nothing. 

The papers played up the Oswald death to the limit. 

Chicago’s richest man murdered by a rare South 
American poison; murderer unknown. Ghostly visitant 
warns him (for they promptly accepted what Miss 
Oswald had told of her father’s belief in approaching 
dissolution) of his death. 

As for the slip of paper, each handled it differently. 
Some thought it was a coincidence; others that the 
murderer dropped it; and so on; but they all agreed 
that “pent,” was but the last part of “repent.” 

After I had finished writing at the office, I got a piece 
of gossip from the society editor that made me sit up. 
It seemed to add another angle to the Oswald case! 
Had he known it, it might have offered him a new line 

of suspicion to develop, I thought. It might point- 

But who can gather all strings for an inquiry as early 
as a coroner’s inquest? Certainly not the coroner, 
whose business it was to point the finger of suspicion. 


CHAPTER VI. 


CONSIDERATIONS. 

M Y stuff had all gone in and I sat talking with 
some of the boys. They had followed the 
mystery up to this point and I had detailed the results 
of the inquiry. In expressing their opinions, some 
took the stand that Oswald had been murdered; others 
that it was suicide; some few held it an accident. 

Peter Groove said it was an “act of God.” Pete 
was a religious radical, a most peculiar combination, 
and of course he thought the old millionaire ought to 
suffer some here below for all the wrongs he had done 
his fellow men; said that an eternity of the Lord’s 
punishment wasn’t enough to compensate for the hell 
old Oswald had made of this life for a host of people. 

It was not so bad as that. J. Marion Oswald was 
no worse than most of his fellow business men. He had 
lived and acted solely for the good of J. Marion, any 
and all the time, with a little more success than the 
other fellow. That was all, but that most people would 
not forgive him. The old man had done some pretty 
decent things, too. It was he who, during the war, 
insisted on a horizontal increase for every toiler in his 
employ; this over the opposition of all the other unified 
business directors with whom he was associated. Wages 
did jump up, too; not a paltry ten or fifteen cents a 
day, but fifty and seventy-five percent on each man’s 
74 


Considerations 


75 


daily stipend. It was this move on his part that con¬ 
tributed so greatly in driving up wages in the other 
big plants. 

More enemies? Sure! The woods must have been 
full of those who would have liked to strangle the old 
fellow, not only in a business way, but actually as well. 
In this “long and active life of mine,” of thirty-two 
years, I’ve noticed that you can take away a man’s 
wife, remove his children, besmirch his character, do 
him any injury except—well, just as soon as you lay 
your finger on his pocketbook you touch his very soul. 
And the souls of untold thousands had writhed under 
the touch of J. Marion Oswald. 

This made all the more difficult the finding of his 
murderer. If we investigated the whereabouts on that 
eventful noon of everyone who wished the old million¬ 
aire dead, we’d have had on our list over half of our 
good American citizens. If we did undertake the task, 
and in spite of the verdict it turned out to be a case 
of suicide, our pains would be all for nothing. I fore¬ 
saw that the investigation would be a merry little chase 
for Larry Bowen. Me?—Sure. The chief had me in 
*—and right out again—with, “Find out the truth about 
this death.” 

That is what one gets for bringing in the correct 
guess on a few paltry little mysteries that had puzzled 
the police. Had he, the chief, remembered my wonder¬ 
ful guess on the first odd happening with which I had 
been tangled up, the episodes of the supernormal, he 
might not have been so enthusiastic about my un¬ 
ravelling this puzzle. Newspaper men’s memories are 
about as short as they say their readers’ are. It was 
Cyrus Herron who pulled me out before. 


76 The Fangs of the Serpent 

While the boys were hot at work solving the burning 
question, Hazel Dell strolled over. She is our society 
editor with another name for home use; but Hazel Dell 
is carried at the head of the column. She listened a 
few moments, then threw in her little bombshell. 

“Say, Larry, did you know that Miss Oswald was 
engaged to Stitmore Tithes ?” 

Well, wouldn’t that make a fellow sit up and take 
notice! Engaged to that long, stiff creature! Why, 
he must be twenty-five years older than she. He looked 
fifty, if he looked a day. 

“What kind of match is it?” one of the boys inquired. 

“Oh,” explained Hazel, “it is supposed to be a love 
match. He hasn’t anything, at least only a good 
practice. It is whispered that Papa helped to make 
the plans.” 

Old Oswald conspiring to marry his daughter to a 
man nearly old enough to be her father! My blood 
began to show signs of climbing to two hundred and 
twelve degrees. J. Marion dropped in my estimation- 
nearly to the bottom of the column. My plans for 
going up to call on Miss Oswald the very next after¬ 
noon suddenly faded away. I wasn’t in so much of a 
hurry. I went next morning and had the butler give 
me my cornet. 

Up to now matters had rolled off the press of events 
too quickly for me to do more than catch them as they 
came. I wanted time to consider them, to get their 
bearings and relations. 

I did not stay long with the boys after Hazel’s 
revelation. Leaving them still arguing, I set off on 
my supposed journey to the end of the mystery. In 


Considerations 77 

reality I sought my room, pulled out my big chair, and 
sat down to think it over. 

One by one I turned over all the facts brought out; 
but when I came to study them, I found few of value. 
Take the decision of the jury that it was a homicide: 
Granted that this was the truth, on one hand we had 
a clever murderer, on the other, a whole nation from 
which to choose him. 

But I could not confine my deliberations to murder. 
I had to consider all possibilities. Of these there were 
three: J. Marion Oswald died as the result of an 
accident, he committed suicide, or he was murdered. 
Very simple, was it not! 

An accident? Nothing so far developed tended to 
show that it was. 

Suicide? His daughter had been closer to him than 
any other living soul. Mr. Oswald had loved her with 
a love that was proverbial among their friends in 
Chicago. She was not only an only daughter, but his 
close confidant as well. She was firm in her belief that 
it was murder. After all, self-destruction was most 
improbable. If ever man had reason for living, J. 
Marion Oswald was that man. 

Murder? If we might judge by the number of those 
who wished him dead, it was murder beyond a doubt. 
Had J. Marion been a cheap business man with as many 
haters as had the millionaire a dozen hired killers 
would have put him out of the way in a week. But 
even the Chicago gangster indulges in occasional 
spasms of self-preservation. For one of that ilk to 
“get” a man like J. Marion Oswald, using their methods, 
methods at once recognized by the police, meant suicide. 


78 The Fangs of the Serpent 

No, if someone had hated the old man enough to put 
him out of the way, it had been a personal task. 

But when I came to consider the difficulties attend¬ 
ing such a murder! It seemed impossible that anyone 
could have reached him. As for a face-to-face killing, 
that was unthinkable. Would J. Marion Oswald calmly 
have extended his arm and permitted his enemy to 
drive in the poison? Besides, I couldn’t see how it 
would be humanly possible for anyone to get up to 
that fourth floor without being seen by the servants. 

The butler’s place was in the hall. Anyone entering 
by the front, would have been seen by him; or if they 
did slip by, he would have seen or heard them on the 
stairs, as practically the whole flight was visible from 
his post. Likewise the fire-escape was impractical. 
The man in the yard would notice anyone climbing to 
the fourth story; or the kitchen girl would have seen 
the start of the climb. But, granted that without being 
noticed, someone did get up, what then? The windows 
were all locked fast, especially the one on the fire- 
escape which had special fastenings placed by order 
of Mr. Oswald. But suppose that they had been open, 
would J. Marion have quietly stood and let someone 
climb in? 

Might not the murderer have hidden in the room? 
If so, how did he effect his escape? Down the stairs 
and out? Almost impossible. By the window to the 
escape, or other opening? Then how lock it after 
him? An airship might have brought the man and 
have taken him away. Fine chance! A huge, roaring 
machine to come and pick up a person on such an 
errand! Any theory such as this, would suppose at 
least two in the plot. Well, if there were two, sooner 


Considerations 


79 


or later the two would become three; and three is the 
multitude. The facts would leak out. We’d get the 
news. 

Of course there are other ways than direct killing. 
The poison might have been secreted about some device 
which would, at the proper time, drive two poison pins 
into J. Marion Oswald and close the chapter. But if 
so, the device would be left. Where was it? Every¬ 
thing in the museum had been there for at least months. 
The last things received, as I found out through 
Sullivan, who got the information from the butler, were 
a case containing a single, huge Tuscan amphora and 
a dozen Alaskan halibut hooks, carved by natives more 
than two hundred years before. One could not by any 
effort squeeze a wrist into the narrow slit between the 
point and the wood. But no chances were taken; they 
were tested for poison; none was found. 

No! No weird machine was found. The probability 
that the curari was introduced into Mr. Oswald’s 
system by such a method was not one that appealed 
to me. Everything on that floor had been a museum 
exhibit; there being no strange device that was out of 
place, that theory had to be dismissed as a tenable 
hypothesis. 

In these days of great inventions, criminals are keep¬ 
ing right along with the rest of the procession; some¬ 
times I think that they are a few laps ahead. Only 
lately, it was reported that death could be sent over 
a wire. I had not heard of anyone sending a material 
object, such as curari, over one—yet. But nothing is 
impossible. 

After all, how does a material object differ from an 
electric current? I do not know; if we really, and 


80 The Fangs of the Serpent 

fully understood, may they not be the same thing? 
Does not the beam of light, the X-ray, of peculiar 
structure, of course, do what a few years ago we would 
have declared impossible? No, nothing is impossible. 
It might be possible to send curari over a wire and 
into a man’s wrist as he held the receiver of a telephone. 
But, J. Marion Oswald had no phone on that floor. 

Over an electric wire then? How localize it so that 
it would strike a given person, in a given place, at a 
given time? This was getting too deep for me. All 
this might be possible, but it was a long way ahead of 
my time. I might just as well postulate a means of 
sending poison by wireless. 

What a life we would lead were this possible. Lovely 
—that is no name for it. I, John Smith, do not like 
Peter Jones. Bingo, I turn a little switch, a wireless 
wave conveys the drug to said Peter Jones, and Peter 
ceases to have any interest in mundane matters. 
“Larry Bowen, me boy,” said I, “get back on the track. 
You won’t find out who killed J. Marion Oswald by 
any such wild guess as that.” 

“Yes, and if you do find out, me bold lad,” my reason 
responded, “it will be by a guess or an accident.” 
“Then,” answered I, cheerfully, “I have a chance; for 
fully nine-tenths of all happenings down on this plane 
are accidents.” 

So I harked back to the means, letting probable, or 
possible, or impossible causes take care of themselves. 
What did we know about the means? 

Easy to start with. There was the poison, curari; 
there were the two holes in J. Marion’s wrist. How 
did the poison get into the holes? I didn’t know. 


Considerations 81 

How did it get into the house, the museum? Same 
answer. 

Second start. A torn scrap of paper. Where did 
it come from? Probably dropped from the clothes of 
J. Marion Oswald. How did it get there? Either 
through his own agency or an outside one. It bore 
the letters, “p-e-n-t,” and a fraction of another one. 
The word of which it had been a part was probably 
“repent.” In view of what Miss Oswald had told us, 
it undoubtedly was that. 

But who had written it? Unknown. And, after all, 
had it really any connection with his death? I doubted 
it. No visible connection existed. Except for its being 
torn, it would have been entitled to no more credence 
than the other papers found in his pockets; these were 
simple business communications and statements. But 
the fact that it had not been in his pockets but ap¬ 
parently had dropped from somewhere about his person 
as he was lifted, and that it was torn, gave it an 
importance not to be ignored. 

The other unusual feature of the case was an ap¬ 
parition. Here was a figure, transparent, with a weak, 
far-away voice, according to Miss Oswald, which wraith 
came from the mystic realms beyond the river. For 
what? To tell J. Marion Oswald what he had done 
on an earth plane in the past, what he would do in 
the future, and to convey a warning. Rather puerile; 
also, wholly selfish. Purely individual, I noticed. 
Nothing that benefited anyone except J. Marion and 
his daughter. And they had about all the blessings 
life can bestow upon those here below. 

Had this ghostly visitor appeared to some poor tene¬ 
ment dweller, heartsick and bitter, and told him how 


82 The Fangs of the Serpent 

to escape the gloom and the worry which break his 
spirit and tear his soul, it might have been doing some¬ 
thing that would coincide with our ethical and moral 
beliefs. “Bear the burdens of the weak.” “As ye do 
to the least of these, so ye do unto me.” 

Evidently, spirits in the other world do not practice 
love for the weaker vessels on their plane, any more 
than we do here. Anyway, they seem to appear only 
to those who have little need of aid or succor, however 
much they may need comforting. 

Let us be just, though. It may be that the vital 
matter is to establish beyond cavil, the existence of a 
means of communication between those who have passed 
and those who remain. In that case, it is work with 
those whose life spark is attuned to catch the vibra¬ 
tions coming from the other shore. If J. Marion 
Oswald was especially fitted to receive such messages 
from the region beyond the grave, he was but fulfilling 
his destiny in attempting to write a record men could 
not dispute. 

But this materialization: That touched a rather 
raw chord. In my time I have seen so many fakes, 
that I am decidedly skeptical. Yes, and I have seen 
at least one genuine spirit. She came back, not for 
the cheap tawdry purposes most alleged spirits mate¬ 
rialize to sustain, but for love, an abiding, never-ending 
love. What would not I give for a love like that! 

I hasten to add: She did not appear in Chicago. 
Oh, no! There may be genuine soul-wraiths that could 
bear to leave the beautiful land beyond to come back 
to Chicago, but I never saw any of them. Frauds? 
Oh, yes; many spectres appear in the Windy City but 
—well, the less said, the better. 


Considerations 


83 


Which made me doubt Miss Oswald’s account. It 
was true; I did not doubt that she had seen something. 
Also, by her testimony, it was evident that for over a 
year her father had no connections directly, with an 
outside medium. If this were so, none of these could 
have a reason for working a fake on him. Then, too, 
according to Miss Oswald, no cabinet was used. They 
simply sat in her father’s darkened study and called 
Deborah. Sometimes she came; sometimes she did not. 
A rather independent spirit! It was somewhat peculiar 
that she appeared always in the door of J. Marion’s 
bedroom. But that room had no other outlets save a 
door to his bath, which was a closed room, and two 
windows in the south side of the house, and a front 
window, east. To them it was as though Deborah 
came out of a closed closet, gave her message and, 
returning to it, disappeared. There was no egress 
from Mr. Oswald’s sleeping apartment, save through 
his study. 

This spirit visitor did not write; (who knew if she 
could or could not?) but she spoke. Always she pre¬ 
fixed her other communications with a fixed formula. 
Yes, and sometimes as she dissolved, ended the sessions 
with it. At which times, Miss Oswald told us at the 
inquest, her voice grew very faint, trailing off into 
nothing. 

Her message at these times was, “Do not forget, 
Marion; before it is too late, repent.” Marion clearly 
was J. Marion Oswald, though it must have been years 
since anyone had been intimate enough with him to call 
him that. Old friends and relatives who had known a 
“Marion,” one by one had slipped away. His newer 
friends and business associates referred to him, to his 


84 The Fangs of the Serpent 

face at least, as Mr. Oswald. To his daughter he was 
“father.” 

Perhaps Deborah had been one of his friends in the 
days long gone. I decided that a dip into the past 
might bring to light someone who would recall an 
acquaintance of J. Marion Oswald’s acquaintances who 
bore the name of the old prophetess of Israel. 

The J. in Oswald’s name stood for Josh and had 
been given by his grandfather. Not Joshua or Joshibel, 
but plain old Josh. No wonder that the boy had barely 
reached his teens before he began to sign himself, J. 
Marion. Think of calling a boy “Josh” in Chicago! 

Yes, the message was for him. It was delivered to 
him; his name was used. About as convincing proof 
as can be secured here below. 

“Do not forget.” Forget what? There must have 
been plenty of incidents in his life that J. Marion would 
wish to forget; but what was there he should not 
forget? 

“Before it is too late, repent.” Repent of what? 
There were so many things he should have repented 
and made right; not that they were not in accordance 
with our liberal code of business ethics, perhaps, though 
they certainly were far from right according to modem 
thought and morals, that any search through these 
would but muddle up the case more completely. 

“Repent,” sounded like an exhortation from a re¬ 
vivalist. I had never before heard of a visitor from 
the other world turning evangelist. Yet, “live and 
learn.” Possibly, we down here are turning so far aside 
from the straight and narrow path, that mediums are 
going to call back the exhorters who have passed over 
to set us aright. 


Considerations 


85 


The chief had said, “Go find the murderer.” A fine 
chance I had. Ail there was to go on was curari poison 
shot in through the wrist, a scrap of paper, and a 
ghost. And the worst of it was, I could see no con¬ 
nection between the three save a dubious “repent” on 
the paper and in the warning of the spirit. 

I decided I’d go and see Abe Sullivan. I dressed, 
caught a car and found him in his office. He, too, 
had been trying to think it out. Abe was willing enough 
to talk now. I have favored him many times in the 
past and if there is no prohibition on his speech, he 
has ever proved willing to share with me any informa¬ 
tion he may secure, or discoveries he may make. 

“Larry,” he remarked as he leaned back in his chair, 
his feet high on his desk, “we aren’t going to find the 
murderer.” He puffed out a fine ring of smoke and, 
with his cigar dangling from his fingers, watched it 
drift up and apart. When it was dissipated he turned 
on me, adding, “No, we won’t find him; for mark you, 
there wasn’t any murderer. Old Oswald killed himself.” 

So Abe had drifted round to that position. 

“That’s all right, Abe* but the chief sent me out to 
find that very personage. I’ve got to dig him up. 
Shall I cast you for chief place? Got a good alibi?” 

“How about your own, lad? You’re far more likely 
to have need of one than I,” and he grinned across at 
me. Come to think of it, I ought to have one about, 
handy for use, if the police did drop on me. I let the 
thought slip, and put a question. 

“If it was suicide, where did the old man get the 
poison?” 

“Off those arrowheads. He was wise enough to fix 
it up from them.” 


86 The Fangs of the Serpent 

“Yes, but how about a motive. A fellow don’t go 
and kick off for nothing at all.” 

Abe raised his hand to his head and twisted an 
imaginary crank. “Wheels, my boy, wheels. Look 
what he was dabbling in. Folks that are not off don’t 
mix up with that kind of stuff.” Long years on the 
force had made Abe a skeptic. All that he had seen 
was fraud, fraud, fraud. To him, anyone who, after 
the unmasking of so much faking in spiritualism, could 
still believe, was weak minded. He maintained that 
those things that had not been satisfactorily explained, 
were frauds that had escaped the eagle eye of the 
investigator. 

“Then where is the weapon,” and I returned anew 
to the difficulties that beset the theory of suicide. 

Sullivan shook his head to signify that he did not 
know. “Probably in the museum,” he added. “Any¬ 
way, the inspector’s got that idea, and I was ordered 
to go over it again. I’ve fairly dug it out with a fine 
tooth comb, but they’re not satisfied; I got to do it 
again. They won’t rest on Oswald’s death. Say, if 
you are detailed to this case, come on along. Once in 
a while you have an idea. Maybe you’ll have another 
up there. Just the same, I’ll bet anything that some¬ 
where we are going to run across a word from the old 
man telling how he was going to take the trip. And 
the chances are, it is somewhere about the house.” 

I hastened to accept. “All right. When are you 
going?” 

“Tomorrow afternoon. Can’t get away before.” 

“I’ll be there.” Sent out on detail to this case, my 
hours were all the twenty-four. I could use them as 


Considerations 87 

needed, either night or day, though normally I was 
on nights. 

4 ‘And we’ll see if we can’t find how that ‘ghost’ got 
into and out of that bedroom,” finished Abe. 


CHAPTER VII. 


“M-E.” 

J MARION OSWALD’S museum was a large room. 

• How large I had not realized until Sullivan and 
I began to go over it. 

“We won’t get through today. I know! I’ve been 
over it before,” he remarked as we climbed the stairs 
following the butler who conceived it his duty to con¬ 
duct us. Not that he could have let us in for, after 
the verdict was rendered, on the advice of the district 
attorney, the room had been locked by the police and 
they alone had the right of ingress and egress. Sullivan 
unlocked the door and we entered, the butler returning 
to the first floor. 

“Do you know the size of this place,” Abe asked as 
we stood among the collections before beginning their 
study. I did not; he enlightened me. “Width, fifty- 
eight feet; length, one hundred and eight. Height, to 
the ceiling, fourteen feet. That hall,” and he pointed 
to the box at the top of the stairs, “measures fourteen 
feet on a side. Thus, this floor is all museum except 
for a fourteen foot cube that sticks into the room 
from the west side.” 

There were fifteen windows on each of the long sides 
and seven in each end. Between these entrances for 
light were the cases with the specimens, each set the 
narrow way against the wall, the length projecting 


“M—E.” 


89 


into the room. This left a large opening down the 
center which was occupied by flat table cases and the 
mounted Snake Dance group, as well as several larger 
specimens. 

“Boy, do you realize that we are on rather danger¬ 
ous work,” and Abe looked at me quizzically. “We 
are hunting for a deadly poison; we may find it, just 
as Oswald did. The weapon that made those two holes 
in his arm is somewhere around here. If you catch 
sight of anything that even looks as though it might 
have tw r o needle points, you let it carefully alone and 
call me.” 

I wondered if he thought I was afraid. Me—one of 
the lads who rush in- where coppers fear to tread. I 
said I would. 

“Not that there is a chance of your finding anything. 
I tell you I went over this whole room with a com¬ 
pound microscope. And what did I find? Not one 
damn thing.” Abe snorted in disgust. “Still—just 
your luck—you might stumble on to something.” 

Looking for a needle in a haystack is just such a 
task as we were undertaking; simple as can be. If the 
needle is there, and the hay is removed straw by straw, 
the implement will surely be found. But we were not 
sure that the needle was in our haystack; yet we had 
to exercise just as close care as if we knew it were. 

Sullivan had the keys to all the cases and, one by 
one, we examined every article they contained. This 
he had not done on his previous search, contenting him¬ 
self with ransacking the room. Tedious! Let anyone 
who loves detective work tackle a monotonous task 
such as this. Yet such is the work. We were at it 
three days. Every jar was examined as to contents, if 


90 


The Fangs of the Serpent 

any; each solid article was gone over to see if by 
chance it might not be hollow or contain a secret 
cavity. 

Result of all our efforts: nothing. 

I myself couldn’t see the need of all this. If the 
poison acted as rapidly as Jimmy said it did, J. Marion 
Oswald never could have used a weapon and then have 
concealed it. And if another had killed him, why should 
they conceal the curari or the tool, here? Why not 
carry both with them when they escaped? But Abe 
had orders to examine, and examine it was. 

We were very careful in handling those arrows we 
knew were poisoned with curari, even though one of 
the first things the police had done, after testing them, 
was to clean the points of all weapons. 

“Now if the old man had wanted to use it, here was 
his supply,” Abe remarked as we came to the case. 
“He could easily have made a solution and doped him¬ 
self with it.” „ 

“Then where is the two pointed dagger he used?” 

“How do you know it had two points,” Abe objected. 

I didn’t. Come to think of it, couldn’t he have 
jabbed twice, or been struck twice in succession with a 
single needle? 

“Well, it so happens that you are right,” Abe con¬ 
tinued. “The two punctures enter in so precisely the 
same direction, that there is practically no chance that 
two blows could have been given with a single weapon. 
So that is what I am looking for, a two-pointed tool. 
You don’t suppose that his daughter could have 
removed it?” 

“Certainly not,” I asserted. The face of the girl as 
she voiced her protest, and offered to give a reward, 


“M—E.” 


91 


rose before me. Not by her hand had such a tool, had 
there been one, been removed. 

“The maids—or the butler?” 

I shook my head. “They could hardly have picked 
up and carried away an implement without their 
mistress seeing them, before I arrived. ‘And nothing 
was removed after I entered; of that I am positive.” 
I went on along this line of thought while Abe unlocked 
another case. “But suppose that they had tried it. 
Think of the danger they were in. Two points fine 
enough to make the small holes you described at the 
inquest, would scratch at the slightest touch. No, they 
could not have taken it away. When Hoffman ques¬ 
tioned them, they displayed no nervousness nor gave 
other evidence of trying to hide anything.” 

“Then the thing is still here. He never had time to 
hide it, or even to throw it away. After that poison 
got into him, he never made a quick move. He might 
have tottered a step or two, but no more.” 

Abe was still holding fast to his theory that it was 
suicide. Finished with the cases, we examined the 
objects displayed without covers. These included many 
weapons fastened up on the walls, chests and boxes, 
the Hopi snake dance group, the single suit of armor, 
several specimens of tapestry, and many other minor 
objects. I was particularly interested in the mounted 
rattlers. 

“Here, Abe,” and I pointed to their open mouths 
with the fangs protruding, “are some weapons that 
would do it.” 

Abe grunted. “How far do you think it is from 
this group to where the body was found?” 

I estimated. “Twenty-five feet,” I said. 


92 The Fangs of the Serpent 

“Thirty-nine feet six inches,” he gave as the true 
figures. “Do you suppose a man, stricken as he was, 
could walk that far? Yet testimony shows that he 
dropped at the other end of that big chest.” 

“But if he could have walked,” I objected, “it is the 
very direction he’d take if he was on his way to the 
stairs. If he was after aid-” 

“Yes, but that poison works terribly fast,” Abe 
broke in. “We tried it on an old horse. The district 
attorney wasn’t satisfied with Jimmy’s statements; 
wanted to see it himself. Say, that horse rolled its 
eyes once, bent its knees, fell down, stretched out and 
was dead.” 

“There’s another thing,” he went on, pointing to the 
fangs in the largest rattler. “Notice those. That 
fellow is the biggest of those mounted here and those 
fangs are just an inch and an eighth apart. Remember 
how far I said those holes in Oswald’s wrist were 
apart?” 

I did. “An inch and a half,” I told him. 

“Then none of these fangs could have made the holes. 
Still, we were taking no chances. Scrapings were taken 
from these, but they developed no poison culture. A 
rattler kills by making the holes with his fangs as he 
strikes. Then he wiggles and presses until the fluid 
that is stored in the two sacs at the back of his head 
is forced into the holes. That does the killing. You 
might drive your hand against these fangs now and 
you’d be worse poisoned by the germs getting into the 
holes than by any poison that would come from the 
snake. Rattlesnake venom is far different from curari. 
Had Oswald got the full effect of a healthy, good- 
sized snake like this one,” and he pointed to the largest, 



“M—E.” 


93 


“he’d be alive today. It would be hours before it began 
to work and long before that time a physician would 
have it neutralized.” 

I paced slowly from the group to the end of the 
box farthest away, at which point Miss Oswald had 
first found her father. It was fifteen good, fair paces. 
A weak, or an old person, would have taken more. No, 
Oswald had never walked that distance after receiving 
the curari. 

As we were beside the chest, Sullivan and I now gave 
it our attention. It was not as large, when I became 
more familiar with it, as I had judged it at my first 
impression. The figures, according to Sullivan, who 
measured everything, were: length, forty-five inches; 
height, thirty-two; width, thirty-six. It was peculiar 
in that there were no handles on either end. We 
shifted it out of the way, lifted it up, turned it over, 
but not a thing showed up either on the box, on the 
floor beneath, or the wall behind; except a little dust. 
Abe scraped up some of this, made a little packet, and 
put it in his pocket. “One can never tell,” he re¬ 
marked. “This might show curari.” 

The chest interested me mightily. It was bound 
round and round with copper strips, studded and 
bossed, so that very little wood was visible. The copper 
was handworked for the blows of a hammer were to be 
seen all over it. On the lid, copper bands crossed and 
recrossed entirely hiding the material beneath. The 
lock and hasp, of a crude and heavy design, also were 
of copper, handwrought. It was a peculiar piece of 
work to come out of a cave in Peru, associated with 
Inca remains. 

“Looks more like European work,” I told Abe. 


94 The Fangs of the Seepent 

“Here’s what the record shows,” and he produced 
his notebook into which he had copied what Oswald 
had set down; for the chest had not yet been labelled. 
“Chest in copper; found in a cave near Urabamba, 
Peru, in November of 1917. Discoverer, Jesus Quin¬ 
tanilla, Indian. Secured by James Orth in 1918. 
Reported to have been associated with many bones.” 

Sullivan had gone over the chest outwardly in an 
endeavor to find rough, jagged edges, without result. 
Nor had I any better luck. 

We opened it. It was a difficult performance. The 
chest was very old, the hinges creaked, but it was the 
hasp which presented the greatest difficulties. Before 
it flew up, one had to push the lower part down as hard 
as possible with the left hand while exerting great 
strength with the other on the upper part; to open it, 
one had to treat it with a tearing apart motion. 

We found the interior bare; like the outside, it was 
lined and relined with copper strips. We tapped it 
all over trying to locate hollow spaces, but heard 
nothing suspicious. The raising and the lowering of 
the lid made a great din. It groaned and rumbled and 
squeaked. “We ought to oil the thing,” observed Abe. 

The tapestry that had hung back of the chest next 
engaged us. It had been rehung in its place. In size 
this relic, while the largest in the Oswald collection, 
was not so large as some of the same class I have seen, 
but it was lighter in color. It depicted tents, soldiers, 
men on horseback, in armor and on foot, with pikes 
and cross-bows, scattered all over a great field near 
the sea; over this field was spread a cloth, now a dingy 
yellow. Once, in all probability, it had been golden, but 
time and light had faded the brilliant hues. “Field of 


“M—E” 


95 


the Cloth of Gold,” was the explanation given on the 
slip accompanying it. 

We used a miscroscope upon its threads and upon 
those of the few other and smaller tapestries in the 
room, but all were of simple, twisted fibers. No gilt or 
tinselled cords were interwoven. Ordinary thread can¬ 
not puncture the human skin; that freed the tapestries 
from complicity in Mr. Oswald’s taking off. 

From article to article we moved until we reached 
the suit of armor. The original of “The Skeleton in 
Armor,” according to the butler; also, by inference 
from the label which it bore, which recited the locality 
and the period, leaving no doubt as to what Mr. Oswald 
believed. Abe saw nothing incongruous in this. Any¬ 
one who might believe in a medium calling down a 
spirit was, according to his theory, not up to par, 
mentally. Yet he saw nothing in a grown man accept¬ 
ing this little fiction; he could see no lack of intelligence 
because he could not see the fallacy. How weak we 
are in things outside the ordinary walks of our daily 
lives. 

The armor was mounted, and were one looking for 
points, jagged ends, or lancelets, here could they be 
found. The suit was rusted and broken. Gaps and 
rents showed in every part. Here were plenty of 
needle-points the inch and a half apart required by 
Abe. 

These, too, had been subjected to close scrutiny and 
to tests for their nocuous or innocuous character. 
Nothing had been found. 

On the third day we also examined the Tuscan 
amphora, and the Aleut halibut hooks. These were 
newly secured articles and Abe furnished their descrip- 


96 The Fangs of the Serpent 

tions from his note-book. They, too, had nothing to 
reveal. 

The fourth day we returned to work carefully over 
the floor. Something might have dropped and gone 
under a case. Or some grains of curari might drop 
into the dust near a wall. The sample Sullivan had 
taken from beneath the chest, had given negative results 
when placed in Jimmy’s hands. We had little hope of 
finding anything, but Abe was working under orders. 
We moved all the cases, and everything else that was 
movable; samples of dust found beneath these objects 
were carefully taken and labelled. But we had little 
hope. Nor were ours realized; nothing was found. 

When we had finished with the museum, we were pre¬ 
pared to swear that the implement which had caused 
the death of J. Marion Oswald was not to be found 
within its walls. Nor had we found any trace of the 
paper from which the corner had been torn. Abe still 
was dogmatic for a verdict of suicide; but not I. 

That there had been a paper from which the corner 
I had picked up, had been torn, there could be no 
doubt. The chances were immensely in favor of its 
having been within the walls of the museum at the time 
J. Marion died. As for a weapon with two sharp 
points, that just as certainly had been there. Both 
were now gone. The paper might have blown away, 
had there been a chance; but that could not have hap¬ 
pened to an implement of sufficient weight and strength 
to make the two punctures. If these had not been 
removed by natural agencies, what remained save that 
of a human who carried them off? The logical one to 
suspect of spiriting them away was the murderer. The 
chief was right when he said, “Find the murderer.” 


“M—E.” 


97 


Only I wasn’t progressing in that direction at any 
great rate of speed. 

Having completed our labor in the museum, Abe and 
I went down to inspect the room where Deborah had 
materialized. I now met Miss Oswald, the first time 
I had seen her since the inquest. She smiled faintly 
as she greeted me and asked why I had not called upon 
her. I didn’t tell her the truth; I again promised that 
I would soon,—just as soon as the press of work let up. 
She inquired as to how our quest was progressing and 
Abe told her of our painstaking search and of its net 
results. She at once saw the strength of the proba¬ 
bilities that the one who had killed her father had taken 
away the weapon and the sheet of paper. I do believe 
that it cheered her up. In this way, I mean. 

Here is the poor girl at home* alone brooding over 
her father’s death. No matter how deeply she believed 
that he could not have made away with himself, that 
fear must arise to plague her, again and again. So, 
just to be able to think that the evidence, negative 
though it was, pointed the other way from suicide, was 
some comfort. 

Abe explained that we wished to see the rooms where 
the materialization had taken place, and she herself 
accompanied us, pointing out the position occupied by 
herself and father, and the point at which the figure 
appeared. It was not in front, but a bit to our right, 
of the doorway. 

“Was the door always shut while you were working,” 
Sullivan asked. 

“Working?” Miss Oswald looked at the detective, 
then in a puzzled way, turned to me. 

“I mean while you were trying to raise the spirit,” 


98 The Fangs of the Serpent 

he explained before I could answer her unspoken 
question. 

“Sometimes it was open, sometimes shut,” she told 
us. “It made no difference; we paid no attention to it.” 

“How did she comeP Suddenly?” 

“As I explained before,” Miss Oswald patiently re¬ 
plied, “sometimes she did not come at all. I remember 
very well her first appearance. Though I cannot now 
recall all the tests father made to bring her, I do know 
that he began the first successful attempt by rapping 
upon a small table at his right. We sat here,” and she 
pointed. “After once having succeeded, the method 
was the same, always. He would rap; after a certain 
length of time the taps were answered from the air 
somewhere above our heads. Shortly, Deborah would 
appear. Father had a peculiar way of rapping. After 
that first coming, he always used it, and it only. It 
went like this,” and she tapped lightly on the table 
near the wall. 

“Tap, tap,” pause, “tp.” The first two were long 
and slow, the last one quick and jerky. “Tap, tap,” 
pause, “tp,” she repeated it again; “tap, tap,” pause, 
“tp.” The last one was decidedly staccato. 

Abe was greatly interested. He listened with the 
closest attention. “Did the spirit answer with regular 
taps ?” he desired to be informed. 

“No. Sometimes there were several raps one after 
another that seemed to come from all parts of the room 
above us; at others, they all came from just above 
father. There never was any rhythmical sequence in 
the sounds.” 

At her request we entered the room which for years 
had been her father’s sleeping apartment and found it 


“M—E.” 


99 


just as described at the inquest by the butler. There 
were but two doors; the only one which gave into an 
apartment opening into the main part of the house 
was the one through which we stepped. The other 
opened into the bathroom; this was barren save for the 
customary appliances. 

No closet was used for Mr. Oswald’s clothes. In¬ 
stead, a large walnut case, with huge doors, stood in a 
corner. It was one of the oldtime corner cupboards; 
that is, it was built in a triangular shape, the two right- 
angled sides fitting the walls in a comer, while the 
third side, the hypothenuse, contained the doors. Abe 
asked permission to search, which was willingly ac¬ 
corded; and search he did. Miss Oswald and I with¬ 
drew to the study, where we sat and chatted while he 
went over every inch of the bathroom and of the sleep¬ 
ing chamber. The corner closet did not escape him. 
He scrutinized it, sounding every board. He tried to 
pull it out, but it was fastened to the wall. From my 
seat I could see nearly everything he did. Yet for all 
his careful examination he found not a thing. 

I was in no hurry for him to finish. He might have 
crawled, pried, peeped and pounded over the room all 
the rest of the day and evening; I would not have 
minded. When we left the house that afternoon, one 
of us went with a firm determination to return again 
shortly; and that one was not Abe. 

As we stepped out of the vestibule, he suggested that 
before departing, we walk around the house. The 
distance was rather great, for the house was large. At 
only one point did Sullivan pause. While we were 
pacing along the south side of the residence, he stopped 
when we came opposite Mr. Oswald’s bedroom. The 


100 The Fangs of the Serpent 

two windows were identified readily. The room was a 
large one, occupying fully one-half the width of the 
house at this end. In the center of this south wall, the 
chimney was located, running straight up the full 
height without a break. It projected eight feet from 
the main wall and was twelve feet in width. Abe 
measured it. 

As we walked away after completing the circuit, 
Sullivan looked at me and grinned. 

“You missed something, young man,” and he laughed 
aloud. 

I was chagrined. I supposed that he meant that 
while I was talking with Isobel Oswald, he had dis¬ 
covered something. 

“What did you find that was worth knowing? 
Nothing of any great value, I’ll bet. So you might as 
well let me in on it now. I’ll get it later, anyway, old 
man.” We were passing a drugstore and recalling 
Abe’s love for cigars I invited him in. “Come on in. 
I’ll buy.” He accepted. 

When he had selected a good one of a well-known 
brand, had lighted up and we were again on our way, 
he returned to the subject. 

“In regard to what I found, you saw and heard it as 
well as I. Why tell you what you heard?” 

“Tell that to someone ready to believe it,” I chaffed. 
I didn’t think any such thing could be possible. If it 
were then I would be dumbfounded. Abe Sullivan, one 
of the city’s detective force had got something that got 
by a news man! Then had my sheet better dispense 
with the services of us fellows and hire the city 
detectives as newswriters. 


“M—E.” 


101 


“Don’t string us any more, Abe.” I was doubtful 
about his having anything to reveal. “What was it?” 

Abe was good enough to comply with my request for 
information. 

“You heard the knocks the old man gave. What 
do you suppose he was doing?” 

“Calling Deborah,” I answered, though I knew that 
Abe never would have asked had he wanted that answer; 
yet I also realized that he would expect those very 
words. 

“Hardly. The old boy was telegraphing. Every 
little while I look for some of these matters wriggling 
around beneath the surface of this case to bob up and 
appear on the surface.” 

“Telegraphing!” It began to percolate through the 
interstices of my cranium that those taps were very 
regular, and were regularly repeated. But I had never 
learned the Morse code; Abe had the start of me there. 

“Telegraphing? Who was he calling? What was he 
sending,” I asked. 

“Who—yes, who was he sending to? What he was 
sending is different. If I’ve got it right, over and over 
he was calling, ‘M—e,’ ‘M—e.’ ” 

“ ‘M—e’? Well, that spells { me.’ ” 


CHAPTER VIII. 


CONSCIENCE VS. REASON. 


A S I sat thinking it over that night, I realized this: 

For all we had spent a week at the Oswald home, 
we had got nowhere. As I analyzed what we had done 
and what we had found out, I could see but a slight 
step in advance taken. All we could say was that we 
were a little more certain in our facts, a trifle more 
sure that what few things we did know were true. 

But we knew almost nothing. In addition to the 
poison, the paper and the apparition, we had added 
but one thing to our store of knowledge and that was 
of doubtful value. This was what Miss Oswald had 
told us during our interview with her. 

Her father had developed a custom of calling the 
spirit with a peculiar set of raps. These Abe recog¬ 
nized as part of the Morse code, an idea which occurred 
to neither Miss Oswald nor myself. He was telegraph¬ 
ing two letters, “m” and “e.” 

But did he know that he was sending “m” and M e”? 
There was always the possibility that the old gentle¬ 
man had stumbled into the Morse code quite by acci¬ 
dent. The raps were such as anyone might use; that 
they happened to represent “m’* and “e” as worked 
out by the earliest telegrapher, was no indication that 
this was known to Mr. Oswald, any more than it was 
to his daughter. For “m” the code is two long dashes, 
102 


Conscience ys. Reason 


103 


and for “e” a short dash. Used as a rap, they would 
work equally as well. But, wholly without intending 
to use them as Morse code letters, anyone might just 
happen to use those very knocks. 

On the other hand, the “m” and “e” spelled “me,” 
and he might have called that over and over again as 
a signal to the spirit that it was he who was calling. 
It was ungrammatical, but it might have been, or have 
come to be understood over there, as a code signal 
meaning that J. Marion Oswald wished to communicate 
with Deborah. When one steps into the psychic, the 
problems presented do not find easy solution by theories 
laid down in this life. Thus, Mr. Oswald might have 
used it purposely, or accidentally. 

There was another hypothesis that had to be con¬ 
sidered. Might it not be someone’s initials he was 
using to call them? Neither “M” nor “E” was the 
beginning of the name Deborah; but how did we know 
that Deborah was her right name? Might it not be 
assumed by the spirit and Mr. Oswald to hide some¬ 
thing from the daughter? This, perhaps, was far 
fetched, but it had to be taken into consideration. 

Might not the “M. E.” be someone whom Mr. Oswald 
had known years ago, and with whom he had become 
intimate? It was worth looking into. “Get someone; 
get them to talk,” was as wise a thing as I ever knew 
the police to do. 

It is all right to find a torn glove, trace it to the 
buyer, run him down and examine one of his shirts, find 
a stain on the collar, discover that it is blood, and 
arrest him with, “You are the man.” But, nine times 
out of ten, unless he comes across with a confession, 


104 The Fangs of the Serpent 

the jury will not convict. No, make them talk, say 
police circles. 

If criminals did not have sweethearts and the sweet- 
hearts did not have tongues, our prisons would not be 
half so full as they are. 

Now I felt that there was someone in this affair 
who would talk if we could reach him. But when you 
approach the life of a man like J. Marion Oswald, the 
circle is huge and includes such hosts of people that 
in a case of this kind, it could only be by luck that the 
right one would be reached. Another difficulty lay in 
the fact that the information anyone might have would 
appear of no use to them. Without knowing all the 
ins and outs of the death, they would never conceive 
that a name they held might possibly be the key that 
would unlock the mystery. Apparently, it might have 
no actual connection with his murder but if secured, 
it might unlock the doors to more, and still more, 
information, and eventually solve the question. 

His daughter and the servants knew much, but did 
they know the one thing we were looking for? The 
chances were against it. In fact, they knew too much. 
Their minds were crowded with such a wealth of detail 
that to expect them to pick out a pertinent fact, if 
indeed they had it, was asking too much. 

But perhaps they would recall someone with the 
initials “M. E.” There was also a factor outside of 
friends which might have furnished a “M. E.” This 
was a class, who up to very recent times, had little 
cause to love him: they were the thousands who had 
been in his employ in one capacity or another. Among 
them were probably many “M. E/s.” Yet it wouldn’t 


Conscience vs. Reason 105 

be such a task to try them all. At least, it was not 
impossible of accomplishment. 

Next day I got in touch with Abe and we talked over 
various methods of finding such a person, if he existed. 
With a plan of action agreed upon, we started our 
quest. He was to go to the general offices of the Oswald 
enterprises to discover how many “M. E.’s” were on 
record. For me the task of calling upon Isobel Oswald 
to find if, among those she had known, or her father 
had known, or of whom he spoke, there was anyone 
whose given name began with the tenth letter of the 
alphabet and whose surname with the fifth. 

It was a task. I felt, that other day when I met her, 
how much it might mean to me to be at her side and 
to talk with her; but away from the sight of her sweet 
face, the thought of Stitmore Tithes would come up. 
And my anger would rise. To give her, a beautiful 
young creature, to an old man like Tithes! Old, with 
all it connotes in a single man in Chicago. How many 
men, unmarried at fifty, have lived clean? And to 
turn her over to him! She could not love him, a man 
many years her senior. And for a young girl to go to 
a man she did not love. Perhaps my aunt, who brought 
me up, laid too much stress on moral cleanliness. But 
thanks to her, a marriage to me meant love. 

But what could the marriage of Isobel Oswald and 
Stitmore Tithes mean to me? Nothing. Stop think¬ 
ing about what is no concern of yours, said I to myself. 
Go get what additional information she may have to 
give. But I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to be 
near her, I told myself. Yet, hour by hour, I was look¬ 
ing forward to seeing her again. 

Abe came around to see me on Friday morning. He 


106 The Fangs of the Serpent 

had spent the whole of one day at the offices of the 
Oswald Companies and had then run out to the plant. 
He had results. 

“Did I find any ‘M. E.’s? Say, did I? The woods 
are full of them. At the office I got on track of seventy- 
three individuals all having a last name beginning with 
an E whose first name began with M. At that, I went 
back only twenty-five years; the seventy-three are on 
the records as having worked there since that time. 
At the factories I couldn’t go so far back into the past; 
the earlier records were gone. But among those who 
have toiled there within the last fifteen years, I gathered 
in only five hundred and forty-two names. Why, it 
looks among the foreigners, especially, as though every 
other man’s last name began with an E. Just look 
at this list, will you! I had four girls they loaned 
me at the plant, helping copy these,” and he tossed a 
bundle of sheets on the table. 

At the head of the line stood Melchisedek Eabling 
and down at the end was Marduzzi Ezzioli. In between 
—well, it certainly was a hodgepodge. Yet in that list 
might lie the key we sought. 

“Cheer up, Abe,” I laughed, as he sank down in my 
big chair. “This isn’t so bad. Rather comb Chicago’s 
three millions for the murderer? Why, you’ve only six 
hundred and fifteen to look up here. Easy money! 
Go to it, old man. You have my blessing.” 

There was the possibility of a germ of great value 
in his work unless his lists failed to go back far enough. 
I feared that they did not. Now, had I done the in¬ 
quiring, I would have made a start with the date when 
J. Marion as a young man actively entered the busi- 


Conscience vs. Reason 107 

ness, and brought it down to within ten or fifteen years 
of the present time. 

Men, when they reach the age of sixty-five and sev¬ 
enty, are past the time when their acts are going to 
bring some individual in a rage about their ears. Old 
men may receive mass condemnation for acts affecting 
the social welfare; but rare indeed is that septuagena¬ 
rian who, by his personal deeds, arouses another to 
thoughts of revenge upon him. So I felt, had Abe 
planned to confine his inquiries more closely to the 
younger days of J. Marion Oswald, we might have been 
more certain of results. But perhaps he could not; 
business firms are few and far between, who retain all 
the lists of men who have worked for them at various 
times. 

Sullivan wanted to know how I had made out. He 
was greatly surprised when he heard I had not gone. I 
explained as well as I could that social amenities were 
averse to such rapidity in making calls. To be invited 
one day to call the next might go in his circle, but there 
was considerable difference in procedure in the social 
order which claimed Miss Oswald as its own. Abe 
grunted. I believe he saw through my pretense. I 
wanted to groan, but for a different reason. I had 
made an appointment yesterday to call the following 
evening, I told him. That was tonight. Abe departed. 

Tonight I dressed with trembling. All the way to the 
Oswald home, I trembled. As I stepped out of the taxi 
I felt a great need of something to lean up against. 

Then I came to myself. Why on earth was I acting 
like a kid schoolboy going to call on his first sweet¬ 
heart? One would think I was going to make love to 
Isobel Oswald. Oh, yes, a reporter on the common 


108 The Fangs of the Serpent 

press going to offer his heart and hand and hall bed¬ 
room to an heiress with millions in her own right; and 
she already safely engaged to the man favored by her 
father. Brace up, you poor fool, and walk along! 

There was another thing that bothered me. I was 
supposed to take advantage of her in this way: under 
the guise of a call, I was to try and worm more facts 
from her concerning the death of her father. Abe sup¬ 
posed that I would; he saw nothing unethical in it. 
Well, maybe I would; and then maybe I would not. 

Tasker answered my ring; took me in, took my hat 
and coat, and ushered me into the reception room. In 
a moment he came back, saying Miss Oswald asked me 
to come to her own drawing-room. 

I was still trembling, yet in a moment more I was 
bending over her hand saying some soft nothing about 
the evening or the weather. Her room was small; a 
cheerful fire glowed on the hearth. The lights in pink 
shades threw a warm, cozy glow about us. She gave 
me a chair at one side of the fire and herself took one 
opposite. 

We talked, heaven knows about what. I wonder if 
I wandered in my replies for I cannot recall half the 
things we discussed. Isobel Oswald was no child. She 
was nearly thirty years of age, with a mind matured 
by travel and by association with the world’s foremost 
men. 

She was lovely. The softness of her expression, the 
tenderness of her glance and the melody of her voice— 
how can a woman be so beautiful! Oh, for the good old 
days when men fought one another and died gladly for 
a smile from their ladylove! 

We talked of many things, yet uppermost in the 


Conscience vs. Reason 109 

thoughts of both of us was the tragedy that had first 
made us known to each other. I asked no questions. 
Not for the world, at least on such an evening, would 
I intentionally pry into the past, even though such pry¬ 
ing might not touch her great and loving soul. For 
she had loved her father, and she was lonesome; no one 
can know how lonesome such a loss makes the loser, 
unless they, too, have lost. A soul hunger—yes, I 
know it; I am alone, my life has been alone. 

Since a little lad I have never known father or 
mother; and if I can feel this loneliness, never having 
experienced the j oy of a cherishing love, save my 
aunt’s, what must Isobel Oswald’s have been! 

I longed to offer her comfort; but how can one? 
Tell humorous stories? We of the press get the cream 
of such tales. Well, I could not, nor did I know the 
propriety of such a course. So we talked and talked. 

Something either Abe or I did on our visit must have 
given her the impression that we doubted her tale of 
the apparition, for suddenly after a pause during which 
she looked into the fire and I looked—well, I should 
have looked into the fire, too, but did not—she turned 
to me. 

“You do not believe in ghosts, or the return of the 
dead from the other side, do you, Mr. Bowen?” 

I was startled, yet I managed to gathei* my wits 
together and replied. 

“Miss Oswald, I truthfully can say that I do. That 
you may know of the sincerity of my declarations, let 
me tell you of the woman whose love was so great that 
she could not rest in her grave but came back to com¬ 
fort her husband,” and I told her the story of the 
episode of the trunk and the love that never died. 


110 The Fangs of the Serpent 

“So you see, Miss Oswald, that at first hand I have 
proof of the coming back of those who pass on.” 

“How she must have loved him,” she said softly, her 
eyes shining. 

“Yes.” Then I added, “And for such a love as that 
Fd give all the world, if I had it, except that love,” and 
I meant every word of it. No one, except we poor dubs 
who drive through life alone, can realize the craving 
we have to love and be loved. But I was upon danger¬ 
ous ground and I hurriedly switched back. 

I had mentioned Cyrus Herron in the story and she 
was interested; so I told her more of my friend’s work. 
“You see, Miss Oswald, that there are many fakes and 
frauds in psychic work.” Cyrus Herron and I had 
solved the mystery of many ghostly happenings; he 
did the solving, I went along. I explained this to her. 

“Then he works on mysteries other than the purely 
psychic,” she exclaimed. 

“Not exactly. That isn’t his work. It at least has 
to appear to be of psychic origin.” 

“Do you know, I greatly fear,” she confided, turning 
her large eyes up to mine, “that the coroner and the 
police are set upon proving father a suicide. I know 
that he was not.” 

That was putting it a little strong. If she knew — 
but she did not actually know any more than I did, I 
told myself. Under the stress of her emotion she but 
affirmed what her knowledge of her father made here 
certain was the truth. 

“Then we must find his murderer,” and I sighed for 
that began to look like a hopeless task. 

“Why the sigh, Mr. Bowen?” and she smiled across 
at me. 


Conscience vs. Reason 


111 


“Because,” and I told just what I thought, “we are 
going to have the time of our lives doing it. Anyone 
brainy enough to dare to attack a man as powerful 
as your father has plenty of gray matter. His tracks 
will be well covered.” 

“But suppose, Mr. Bowen, that it was some one from 
the other world? If they can love, then can hate; and 
they know how to love. Some one may have come 
back—” She hesitated and looked down. 

“Yes,” I thought; “came back, secured the curari 
and a spiked tool, and sent Mr. Oswald out. If they 
come back in spirit, why not bring spirit weapons and 
poisons, and kill that way. Yes, and who knows but 
what they do.” Aloud I said, “But you cannot believe 
that?” 

“I do not know what to think. It does not seem that 
it could have been an accident; yet I do know that he 
did not do it himself. And I cannot see how any one 
could have gone to the museum in broad daylight, killed 
father without his making a sound, and then escaped 
without some one of us about the house seeing him. If 
none of these things happend, what remains excepting 
the spirit world?” 

The poor girl had been working with her father on 
psychic phenomena so long that anything not readily 
explained she referred to some cause outside the earthly 
plane. 

“You don’t think Deborah had a hand in it?” I 
queried. 

“Oh, no,” quickly. “She had the kindest voice and 
she loved us. Sometimes when she spoke I thought I 
heard father in her speech; so much did she care for 
us that she took on some of our characteristics.” 


112 The Fangs of the Serpent 

She did? This was getting interesting. She went on. 

“And she warned us many times, too. Once she 
saved father thousands in a stock deal he had under¬ 
taken. Again, one night when I had the croup—oh, 
yes, even at my age—,” and she blushed prettily, “she 
came and told father what to do.” 

So the visitant from the other world did do some 
good, knew what was going on and how to act as a 
doctor, at a pinch. With such sublime faith as that I 
could not hint at the doubts Abe and I entertained. 

“I want to ask you one question, Miss Oswald.” She 
smilingly told me to proceed. “How did you know her 
name was Deborah?” 

“Oh, father recognized her. He said that she was 
some one he had known long ago, and to call her Debo¬ 
rah. He told me that I had never known her; so we 
never discussed her life on this plane.” 

It certainly began to look as though Mr. Oswald 
himself had held all the strings we were trying to reach, 
and had taken the ends with him to his grave. So he 
had known Deborah! I decided that now was a good 
time to ask if she knew any one with initials M. E. No, 
she did not, but why did I ask? I had gone so far; I 
took another step. 

“Miss Oswald, you remember those taps your father 
used in calling up the apparition ?” 

“Oh, yes. I told you of them the other day. They 
were these,” and she repeated them. 

“Did you know that these represent ‘M’ and fi E’ in 
the Morse telegraphic code?” 

She sat for some moments without replying. Yet I 
could see that what I had told her was news. When 
she raised her eyes to mine, she had determined this 


Conscience vs. Reason 


113 


had been unknown to her father. If any one, she should 
know. What she said was, “No, not ‘represent,’ for we 
did not know that they were what you say. They may 
by chance stand for the same letters, but we were not 
using them in that sense.” Her voice was earnest as 
she continued. “Why, I didn’t tell you, but I think I 
invented them myself. Father tried all sorts of com¬ 
binations, and I assisted by giving variations on his 
raps. That series, those that finally brought Deborah, 
seemed to synchronize more easily and naturally, and 
we used them many times before she made her first 
appearance. For it did not bring her the first time we 
used this set, by any means. So you see that there is 
nothing in the ‘M. E.’ after all.” 

I saw, but I wasn’t so sure that there was nothing 
in the use of those letters. And what seemed conclu¬ 
sive to her, was that though she tried during the 
remainder of the evening to think of a single person 
known to her father, with those initials, she failed to 
recall anyone. Of course it was reasonable that if 
her father knew no one who was “M. E.” he would not 
attempt to call them up. 

“You remember,” her melodious tones flowed on, 
“how I told that father feared the message, ‘Do not 
forget, Marion; before it is too late, repent,’ had a 
warning for him that presaged his death. He was 
right, as we now know. But another somewhat curious 
thing happened a month ago. I would not mention it, 
and it may be of no moment, anyhow, if it were not 
that father’s death is so mysterious. One noon father 
received a special delivery letter here at the house. 
Father always had all his mail go down to the office 
where his secretary attended to everything. But this 


114 The Fangs of the Serpent 

noon, so he told me later, those at the post-office who 
had father’s order and knew what to do with his mail, 
were gone. Some inexperienced employee sent the boy 
up here with the letter. Tasker took it and brought 
it to father. He opened it and gave a little start. 
But he said nothing about what was in it. I supposed 
that it was a business communication, and it may have 
been. I did not ask; so I do not now know. He was 
very absent-minded during the rest of the meal and 
once I saw a tear roll down beside his nose. But I am 
not sure this was of any importance; doubtless, it was 
not.” 

I did not agree with her, but I did not tell her so. 
“Indeed, Miss Oswald, it would seem that you are right. 
One can always pick out a number of little things, each 
one slight in itself, which if considered together, seem 
to point to some untoward development. Yet these 
little things may have no connection with his death.” 

“I did not know if they were of moment or not, but 
I have set my whole heart on having him freed of even 
a breath of suspicion of having made way with himself, 
and I want to give every possible assistance. I am so 
glad that I can tell you these things and that you will 
tell me what you think. There was one thing more. 
Some days later, one afternoon, as we were talking over 
the questions to ask Deborah at the next seance, father 
suddenly looked across at me and asked, ‘Bella, do you 
believe ghosts can kill?’ I answered, ‘Of course not,’ 
and wanted to know why he asked such a question. He 
passed it off with light word and I thought little of it. 
Father had a most unusual mind, one that always was 
wandering out of beaten paths; I was familiar with 
such queries.” 


Conscience vs. Reason 


115 


“You are sure he used the word ‘ghosts,’ not ‘spir¬ 
its,’ ” I asked her. 

“Yes, I am certain; in his psychic studies he almost 
never made use of the former term; so I noticed it 
particularly.” 

“That makes it seem odd to me. It is a question if 
he was not referring to ‘ghosts’ in his past life.” 

“Oh, it couldn’t have been that,” expostulated the 
girl. “Father was too kind and too just to have any¬ 
thing like that on his mind. A lot of men who tried to 
get the better of him and who failed have made father 
out to be a conscienceless scoundrel whose only love 
was money. I know this is false. I knew him better 
than anyone else, and he was the soul of honor,” and 
while there was a touch of tears, her voice rang with 
her faith. 

Larry, Larry, me boy, why couldn’t you win the 
love of a woman like that? What would not life mean 
to you! But that need not make me insane with love 
for Miss Oswald. Yet it was all that I could do to 
refrain from putting my arms around her and drawing 
her to me as I took my leave. Every fiber of my being 
ached with the longing for the colleen. Yet quietly, as 
though such thought I never had entertained, I bade 
her “Good-night.” With her “Good-bye,” she included 
an invitation to call again and added that she was 
always at home on Friday evenings. 

As I walked homeward and turned over in my mind 
the events of the evening, it suddenly dawned upon me 
that I had not even hinted at the one thing she had 
requested me to discuss. We had made no mention of 
her proposed offer of a reward. I had forgotten it 
entirely. 


116 The Fangs of the Serpent 

I went homeward on foot. For I wanted to think. 
And every step of the miles made plainer to me the 
impossible course I was pursuing. 

Arrived at home, I had a great session with myself. 
You damned scoundrel, I thought, what are you think¬ 
ing of? You, a penniless beggar, daring to fall in love 
with that scion of a modern aristocracy! Shame on 
you! Why, your last year’s earning would not buy one 
of her dresses. Conscience laid me out on the coals. 

Yet always my longing came back. Reason hotly 
engaged conscience. What is this thing that stands 
between you and your love? Reason asked; then 
answered, Money, always money. Damn money! It 
isn’t anything. Now birth. You are of as good birth 
as is she. The blood of Irish kings flows in your veins. 

And the blood of a greater modern king, a monarch 
of the business world, in hers, argued Conscience. 

But, rejoined Reason, You have lived straight and 
clean. Have you not as much right to try to win her 
love as has any other man? 

Would the old Irish kings have looked on with satis¬ 
faction at the wedding of their daughter to a serf of 
their realm, Conscience threw back. Would you, had 
you been there, have given your sister to such a one? 
In modern days you who are tied to the wheels of life, 
are the serfs; those who give you your daily bread, who 
rule your lives, are the kings. What would the world 
think and say to your marriage with her? You know; 
see it, see it: “He married her for her fortune.” 

And Stitmore Tithes, went on Conscience. How 
about him? Is it fair to try in an underhand manner 
to steal away his betrothed? 

Yes, Reason answered, If she does not love him and 


Conscience vs. Reason 117 

you can win her; lie has never had her love; you might 
rouse it. 

But for what, insisted Conscience. You, in your 
position, dare not offer her marriage. Better keep 
away from her, it warned. 

Good advice, admitted Reason. Follow it. 


CHAPTER IX. 


I LOSE THE BATTLE. 

N EXT morning I was firm in my determination 
never to call on Isobel Oswald again. For her 
sake, yes, and for mine, I would stop right where I was. 
It should be the end of my folly. 

Abe was in his office when I went in next day. He 
was expecting me. 

“What did you find out?” was his greeting. Sulli¬ 
van knew I would do as I had promised; he knew me 
better than I did myself. 

“Nothing,” I snorted. I was angry; at Abe, my¬ 
self, the world. “She doesn’t know any M. E.” 

“Well, the firm’s books more than make up for her 
deficiency. I’ve run down about a dozen of them. 
Johnny Bulls, Frenchies, Irish, and some others and 
none of them even got within seeing distance of old J. 
Marion. Twelve out of six hundred and fifteen leave 
me only six hundred and three yet to investigate. Say, 
we’ll all be dead and buried like Oswald, before we get 
to the end of those names.” 

I laughed. I knew, and the detective bureau knows, 
that Abe Sullivan is strong on detail work. Once 
started, he’d work through that list from Eab to Ezz, 
or until he found that for which he was searching. 
One gets results that way, too, but it is slow. My 
inclination would have been to jump around on the 
lists and work by elimination. 

118 


I Lose the Battle 


119 


After he had delivered his pronunciamento, I told 
Abe about Miss Oswald’s fear that a ghostly enemy 
had come down and killed her parent. 

“Damn rubbish,” swore Abe. “What with brain¬ 
storms, the unwritten law, and self-defense, we’re hav¬ 
ing the devil of a job to convict the criminals we catch. 
Let some lawyer run in this ghost stuff and it is all 
off. If the spirits from another world come over here, 
commit murder, and then go back to their own place 
where they can’t be jailed for what they do over here, 
we might just as well shut up shop. Rubbish, all 
rubbish!” 

I expressed to him what she had told me about her 
father’s asking her if she believed ghosts could kill. 
Sullivan thought little of it. I then mentioned the 
letter Mr. Oswald had received which had so disturbed 
him. Abe was interested now. After some one who 
could be persuaded to talk, he most favored letters. 
They tell so much; often far more than the writer 
intended. 

He noted the approximate date on which it was 
received, and such other details as I could supply, and 
said that next morning he’d make it his business to go 
through the record book of the branch office that had 
delivered the letter. This would give him the exact 
date, and with this, Mr. Oswald’s files should yield the 
information sought. If the letter was a business one, 
well and good; if not, we’d soon know what it was that 
perturbed J. Marion Oswald. 

It also interested Abe to know that Deborah had 
been known to Mr. Oswald. This line of investigation 
was closed to us at present. Unless some one of his 
few old friends who were left, should recall Deborah, 


120 


The Fangs of the Serpent 

it looked as though Isobel’s father had carried the 
knowledge to the grave with him. 

But we were moving forward a little. We now had 
three possible sources of information: The special 
delivery letter if it could be found; the woman Debo¬ 
rah, if indeed the spirit went by that name here; and 
the M. E.’s Abe was working on. 

Monday morning found me still holding to my reso¬ 
lutions; Tuesday I had as bad a case of blues as ever 
struck me; and by Wednesday night I had thrown 
resolutions and all overboard. I but counted the days 
and hours until Friday evening should come. And 
then—when I went back to my rooms on Friday morn¬ 
ing after going out to get breakfast, there on my 
table, where the landlady had placed it, lay a dainty 
missive. It had come by messenger. Did I know from 
whom it was? Well, had it been from anyone else 
there would have been an earthquake in those chambers. 

It was from her. How she had discovered my 
address I do not know, as I had not told her where I 
roomed. “Will you please call this evening? There is 
a matter I wish to discuss with you. Isobel Oswald.” 
It bore the date of this very morning. Would I accept 
this invitation? Though I well knew that for all days 
to come I might be preparing a hell for myself, the few 
moments of heaven I could snatch while in her company 
should be mine. 

Late in the afternoon I ran around to Abe’s office 
to see how he was getting on. I found him in the 
dumps; he was downhearted about the ultimate success 
of solving the problem. 

“Everything about this case that we touch leads up 



I Lose the Battle 121 

a blind alley,” he complained, as he drew out the 
inevitable consoler and lighted up. 

“What’s the matter, didn’t they have a record of 
the special delivery letter at the branch office?” 

“Sure they did. And they remembered that letter 
all right, too. Some one got the merry hades for send¬ 
ing it up to Oswald’s house. It never could happen 
again.” 

“Couldn’t you trace the letter, then?” 

“No. I got the date all right and went to Oswald’s 
office. The secretary was willing to help, but he had 
never seen it. We went through every file looking at 
every letter that bore that date, or for several days 
previous. And in the whole lot there wasn’t one that 
would make the old man’s heart give a single extra 
thump. But the secretary did say that there were a 
very few letters he was told never to open. They were 
peculiarly marked, four tiny crosses, he said, three in 
a triangle and the other in the middle of it. He does 
not know if these letters were put in the files or not, 
but he thinks not. If they were not, then old Oswald 
had them. Find out from Miss Oswald if he kept any 
letters arqund the house, or if there was anything in 
his house safe that she didn’t know about. Probably 
all those letters are together, unless he destroyed them. 
And that would be just like him. I’ll bet we never see 
them.” 

I tried to cheer him up with references to some of 
the other cases he had solved and some of the fine work 
he had done in the past. For Abe Sullivan had a long 
list of successes to his credit, with very few failures. 
But he didn’t cheer appreciably. This case left us 
with nothing much to work on. Here we had been 


122 


The Fangs of the Serpent 

going over it for more than five weeks, and still we had 
not even a certain knowledge as to whether it was a 
crime or an accident. No wonder Abe was peevish and 
discouraged. 

Eight-thirty that evening found me at the Oswald 
doortMiss Oswald received me in the same room. She 
was as royally attractive as ever; my prayers went up 
that forever and ever I might sit beneath her smile and 
listen to the melody of her voice. 

Men sing of the beauty of the women of the South, 
of the sturdy figures of the women of the North. Stur¬ 
diness postulates strength, and strength one cannot 
always escape; the effects may be unpleasant.. The 
loveliness of the southland connotes the fragile; it 
fades and withers; and even fresh, like a diet of con¬ 
fections, may pall. The voice alone is every changing; 
ever new, yet ever the same. As the coarse raucous 
tones of strength repel, so the shrill, high-pitched voice 
of the Southern beauty must grow wearing. But to 
the deep contralto, with the music of ages running 
through it, one might listen forever and forever, with 
only a heartache when it ceased. And such was the 
voice of Isobel Oswald. 

We sat down and fell to chatting. It was some little 
time before she saw fit to explain what she wanted to 
see me about. She, too, was dissatisfied with the prog¬ 
ress being made, even as was I, and thought that if she 
offered a reward of sufficient size, it might stir things 
up. She reminded me that she had tried to offer it 
before, but had been deterred by the action of the 
coroner. I also recalled, though I did not mention it, 
that I had called on a previous occasion to discuss this 


I Lose the Battle 123 

very matter. She seemed to have forgotten it for she 
went on. 

“It is no reflection on you, Mr. Bowen. You have 
discovered most of the evidence thus far brought forth. 
You found the slip of paper that bore the letters. And 
you have proved that my father was not a suicide. 
But matters are not progressing rapidly. Would not 
an offer of a liberal reward bring in information from 
others ?” 

She certainly was liberal with her praise. I knew 
that I had done nothing, yet she attributed to me all 
that little that seemed to have been accomplished. It 
was hard on Abe because I had been lucky enough to 
pick up the corner of the paper, to give me the credit 
for everything that was done—when, in fact, nothing 
had been done that even hinted at a solution. 

“No, Miss Oswald,” I replied after thinking it over 
for a few moments. “At this stage of our investiga¬ 
tions I do not think it advisable. I doubt if an offer 
of a reward for information would result as you desire. 
No doubt it would bring in much material, but most of 
it would be guesswork, surmise, distorted truth. And 
we are in about as unfavorable a position as possible at 
present; we need no more blind alleys to muddle us. 
You see, an offer such as you contemplate gives every¬ 
one a chance to get wealth, with no more effort than 
making a guess. Any one who comes forward with an 
alleged fact, has hopes that his theory, or guess, may 
solve the problem. And it may. He has everything to 
gain and nothing to lose. Suppose you went ahead and 
posted a reward. What will you ask for? We do not 
yet know what we would find. What sort of person was 
the murderer? Man or woman? Black or white? Tall 


124* The Fangs of the Serpent 

or short ? About the best we could do would be to put 
out a request for information that would lead to the 
apprehension of the murderer of your father. And 
that is too indefinite. Have you spoken to Mr. Tithes 
about it?” 

This was the first time his name had been mentioned 
between us. She neither blushed nor was in any way 
embarrassed. She shook her head. 

“I have not consulted him on the matter. The last 
time we spoke of it was on the day of the inquest.” 

The last time they had spoken of it? Had she not 
seen him since that time? I wondered; my heart beat 
more quickly. I noticed, too, that she was wearing no 
ring. 

“If you think it an unwise plan, I will abandon it for 
the present,” she continued. “Why not call in your 
friend Dr. Herron? He should be interested when it 
is a question if your father did not go to his death 
through some revengeful wraith from the spirit world.” 

I had wished more than once that Cyrus Herron were 
here. In my talk with her on the previous evening, I 
had painted his exploits in the glowing colors they 
deserved. Cyrus Herron was the investigating agent 
for the International Psychic Society. His was the 
task of investigating the remarkable cases, news of 
which kept flowing in upon the bureau, that were 
located in America. Haunted houses, ghosts of all 
descriptions, extraordinary mediumistic work, telepa¬ 
thy, teleaudience, any and all psychic phenomena were 
the field of his work. 

He had been very successful; had discovered many 
frauds, yet had certified to many other cases as being 
of a nature unexplainable on the normal basis. Per- 


I Lose the Battle 


125 


haps these might be reckoned against him as failures, 
for he did not solve the mysteries. 

The association I had with him had made me his 
enthusiastic friend; in the stories of the work he did, 
I gave him his just due. There had been no failure 
then, and Miss Oswald evidently thought that he would 
not fail now. 

But would he come? I could only find out by ask¬ 
ing, and before I left I had worked out a plan to have 
him begin, if he did come. I was to write him that 
night. She insisted on offering him pay for his service, 
if he came. This spoiled the latter part of my evening. 
I was forgetting her wealth, her position, everything 
save that we were man and woman; she a woman to be 
loved, to be won. But that mention of money gave me 
a chill. I went away without asking about the missing 
letters. 

As I bade her good-night, and Tasker showed me to 
the door, I dropped lower and lower into the pit. With 
the sonorous clang of its closing, despondency rose up 
from his lair and settled himself cross-legged upon my 
shoulders. I felt like walking east across Sheridan 
Road, and keeping straight on. 

I wrote to Herron, as I promised, and in four days 
received a reply from the secretary of the Society stat¬ 
ing that he was at present in Florida investigating an 
apparition that was said to feed on negro babies. My 
letter was being forwarded to him there. 

The holiday season came and went. Christmas was 
on a Friday and I dared not call at the Oswald House; 
I spent the day mooning in my room. Nor had I the 
heart to visit Miss Oswald the following Friday, New 
Year’s Day. Doubtless the poor girl would be receiv- 


126 The Fangs of the Serpent 

ing hosts of her social friends; though it might have 
been that because of her recent bereavement she was 
alone, friends not caring to intrude on her season of 
mourning. But I could not go. I dared not run the 
risk of meeting others there on that night. I, too, 
should have respected her season of grief; but some¬ 
how, I thought that she was lonely; and just to have 
in an insignficant news writer might help to cheer her. 
Oh, I had dozens of good excuses why I should go; yet 
I stayed away for three weeks. 

Before the next Friday rolled round, I had received 
a reply from Herron. He wrote that he would be 
unable to give us much assistance, as he had his hands 
full just now looking after the Society’s cases. How¬ 
ever, he had to pass through Chicago, shortly, and 
would stop off for a day. 

The police were letting up on the case somewhat. 
What could they do? They had nothing to work on; 
not a soul could be found against whom breathed even 
the faintest breath of suspicion. Abe still ground 
away at his grist of names on the list without finding 
a tangible suspect. Inquiries among such few old 
acquaintances of Mr. Oswald as I was able to reach, 
failed to show any Deborah, or anyone with the ini¬ 
tials M. E. I began to believe that Miss Oswald was 
right and that the taps were wholly accidental. Abe 
was disgusted, and said so in some very flowery lan¬ 
guage. He said he knew we were on a false trail. 

I went in to see the chief. He was mighty good 
about it, said he’d leave it to me. Keep on if I thought 
I saw a gleam of light anywhere, for if we solved it, it 
would be the biggest thing the News had ever pulled 
off. But do as I thought best. I struck him for a 


I Lose the Battle 


127 


substantial increase. Here was I, thirty-two, with 
hardly a dollar to my name. I had lived it up as it 
came. Now the possibility that a man might marry 
was borne in on me. Of course I had no thoughts of 
taking any such foolish step. But just suppose I 
should think of it, how should I care for a wife? I 
simply said I needed more money and he increased my 
stipend in a noteworthy manner. 

On the Friday following the receipt of Herron’s let¬ 
ter, I went to carry the news to Miss Oswald. She re¬ 
ceived me with the same kindly courtesy. I passed on to 
her the message: she was sorry that he had not given a 
full and complete acceptance. Perhaps, she said, when 
he did come he could be persuaded. But if not, then she 
was quite content to leave the case in my hands. If it 
were solvable, she was certain that I would solve it. I 
know that I blushed like a school-boy. But who would 
not at such praise from such a source? 

We talked long and quietly, thinking and planning 
together. Never had she seemed more sympathetic, or 
closer to me. Poor girl; she looked tired and worn. 
The holidays had indeed been a strain upon her. 

As we stood talking while I was making my adieu, 
I went mad with longing and heart hunger; the near¬ 
ness of her, the sweetness of her presence, the glory of 
her smile, drove deep to my heart. Oh, that hungry 
longing of more than thirty bitter, lonesome years. 
She was my first love. The pent-up flood of passion 
swept away all bounds and I gathered her into my arms 
and found her lips. 

God of gods, she did not draw back! She was not 
angry! 

“Darling, dearest!” The flood of my speech broke 


128 The Fangs of the Serpent 

and flowed about her in waves of burning, endearing 
names. That long first kiss, and her arm crept round 
my neck. She loved me! Oh, only a little! But she 
loved me! 


CHAPTER X. 


DETECTIVE SULLIVAN FINDS THE MURDERER. 

T HERE was this one time in my life—and it may 
come to all men; I know not—when I felt the 
moving desire for prayer. When I left Isobel that 
night, I carried with me the knowledge that the dear 
girl cared; and the wild swirl of my love for her was 
bearing me out into unknown seas. That the call of 
my being should be answered in her heart, made me 
raise a reverent heart to my Maker and give thanks, 
thanks, the sincere outburst of a heart overflowing. 

I wonder, had I been led through the ordinary paths 
of boys, with their childish affections, up through the 
affairs of a young man, would I have felt the swell of 
tenderness, the desire for a love returned, the anxiety 
to enfold in protecting care the one love of my life? 
What a starving, heart-hungry life I had led! 

Stitmore Tithes? I entirely forgot him. I neither 
knew nor cared whether he was engaged to Isobel. We 
loved; with that knowledge I would fight, kill, yes, tor¬ 
ture, rather than have her love escape me. Even if 
she was promised to Tithes, I knew that she did not 
love him. ’Twas me she loved. With her good-night 
kiss upon my lips, it was a new Larry Bowen that 
walked forth into the night. 

I was of little use on the problem of Mr. Oswald’s 
death, the next day. I suppose a man ought to be par- 
129 


130 The Fangs of the Serpent 

doned some slight mental aberration when he has just 
won the loveliest maiden in the world; and for the next 
week my head was in the air. At every opportunity I 
called on Isobel. Not that I found many nights on 
which she was free. But we talked over the telephone 
every day, and if she was to be at home that evening, 
without visitors, Larry Bowen was there. Those 
evenings with her were my Heaven. 

The search for the murderer of J. Marion Oswald 
was continuing its journey at its accustomed gait,— 
slowly. The many happenings that contributed toward 
our puzzlement were dormant. Yet when they did 
break, they caught us unawares. 

Isobel and I had talked of our future one evening, 
until we reached one subject upon which we did not 
agree. She was engaged to Stitmore Tithes, and it 
was my thought and desire that she should break with 
him at once. But Isobel would not. She knew Tithes, 
she said, as a violent, revengeful type of man when 
crossed. Though she professed to believe that he 
would never have considered her had she not been her 
father’s daughter, still, his desire for wealth, his schem¬ 
ing after power, led her to dread throwing an obstruc¬ 
tion across the path he was following; and to him, her 
asking to be released from the engagement would be 
such an obstruction. 

The loss of her father still weighed heavily upon 
her. Now she seemed to feel that if she broke with 
Tithes, I should be in danger. That was a very foolish 
fear, but to me a very dear one; just to have some one 
care whether I came or went, to be solicitous for my 
safety was a new bliss. 

“Of course Tithes knows nothing about your father’s 


Detective Sullivan Finds the Murderer 131 

death” I hazarded. If he were the man she painted 
him, then he became another kink in the problem; for 
he had the motives. J. Marion Oswald’s death, and 
Tithes’ marriage to Isobel, would at once put him into 
the class of America’s biggest financial men. 

“Of course he does not, any more than the rest of 
us,” and Isobel moved away from me. “I know you 
do not like him, and I fear him, while I do respect him; 
but do not try to tangle him in any way with father’s 
death. He had no reason for killing father. Why, 
you might just as well suspect Deborah!” 

The comparison did not strike me as favorably as 
she intended it should. Perhaps, had I known a little 
more about Deborah, I might have known whether to 
suspect her or not. I knew that friend Abe would be 
most happy if he could have an interview with her. I 
mentioned nothing of my doubt but asked: 

“Have you seen her since your father died? Has she 
materialized again?” 

“Oh, no. Oh, Larry, I haven’t had the heart to 
call her.” 

“I know, dearest,” and there was an interval of 
silence filled as lovers know how to fill such periods. 
Then I suggested that perhaps Deborah was lonesome 
and wanted to be called. I made the suggestion in a 
joking manner but Isobel took it seriously. 

“Come on, dear, let us go to father’s study and try 
to bring her.” 

I was sure that it would result in nothing. I had a 
hazy idea, perhaps gathered subconsciously from Sul¬ 
livan’s skeptical comments, that J. Marion Oswald was 
not without guile, and that the medium was known to 


132 The Fangs of the Serpent 

him. But if my Isobel wanted to try, why, bless her 

dear heart, she should try. 

The room was in very much the condition in which 
it had been left. It was cleaned and dusted every day, 
and was warm and cozy. I moved two chairs to places 
beside her father’s table and put them where she indi¬ 
cated. The table was a large and heavy affair, and 
the chairs were cumbersome. With them arranged to 
her satisfaction, we sat down. 

“Go ahead, darling, and rap,” I told her. 

“Oh, not yet. The light must be out.” 

Spirit calling is something that should appeal to all 
lovers. I made haste to the switch and after pressing 
the knob, groped my way back to her, aided by her 
softly calling to me. Then the chairs had to be re¬ 
arranged somewhat to suit me. I wanted to make sure 
that no spirit could drag my Isobel from my side; and 
I did so by making it necessary that she first sever my 
arm, before she could secure my sweetheart. After a 
few necessary preliminaries, necessary from lover’s 
standpoints, Isobel said that she would rap. 

“Tap, tap, (pause) tp.” Then “tap, tap, (pause) 
tp.” Over and over she repeated these set calls, as she 
said her father was wont to use them. Other than this, 
we kept silent. I was willing to stay where we were 
and have her tap, tap, tap, all evening. Of course, now 
that her father was gone, we’d not—came to me a 
vision of a forest in autumn; the flaring reds, the gor¬ 
geous yellows, and the deep greens in the shaded por¬ 
tions, and over it all the scent of the woodland; gradu¬ 
ally this odor was obtruding itself on my attention. 
But almost before I sensed it, from above our heads 
came five long, slow-measured, knocks. I was startled. 


Detective Sullivan Finds the Murderer 133 

Instinctively, I drew Isobel closer; the knocks con¬ 
tinued. Now they were loud, now so faint that I almost 
doubted I heard them. Once it seemed as though some 
r 'ie walked across the floor above us with a steady, 
slow, solemn step. But Isobel was not listening to 
these noises; she had turned and was watching the wall 
where Deborah always appeared. As I felt her turn 
from me, I too turned. 

I had no time to think. I was too busy observing, 
watching; something was going on, something which I 
did not understand. My ears were strained to catch 
the slightest movement on any side of us. There was 
no knowing what might be planning against us there in 
the dark. I would have given a good deal to have had 
the light switch under my hand. 

My nerves were keyed to a pitch of tenseness. I 
expected anything; I feared everything. What could 
—A small patch of luminous matter appeared rather 
high up the wall on the side of the room in which was 
the door to Mr. Oswald’s bedroom. 

At first it seemed about a foot across, very faint and 
hazy, and moving very rapidly. It grew larger by 
degrees and gradually sank to about a foot above the 
floor, where it became a swirling mass of a bulk equal 
to that of a huge man, but top-shaped in form. Out 
of this swirl, in a sudden burst, appeared a woman in 
white filmy robes. A woman? Perhaps not. Rather 
a wraith in a woman’s shape. 

I am not given to impressionism. I always pride my¬ 
self on my hardheaded reasoning; but there was some¬ 
thing odd, not understandable, about that specter. 
The face was that of a woman anywhere from twenty 
to forty; sometimes she appeared young, and at the 


134 


The Fangs of the Serpent 

next glance she had aged greatly. And—-the weird 
part of it was that I could see the wall behind her 
through her form. 

A ghostly figure-yes, yet every ounce of reason I 
possessed, cried out against it with the shout fraud. 
Oh, for a chance at that light switch. Yes, and if I had 
switched it on and found nothing? 

I felt ray flesh shrinking at the thought. A creepy 
sensation moved along my spine and toward my hair 

-y\Thy ?_Why ?—I have attended many a professional 

seance, some where I was convinced that the medium 
was crooked, yet, every time when the figure appears, I 
experience these same sensations. My sensations could 
not be a criterion as to its genuineness. This one I 
could see through, though. It bore a stamp of timth- 
fulness I never had encountered before. In Isobel I 
felt no shrinking; her breath came as quietly and as 

evenly as before. . . 

All these thoughts passed through my mind in a 
flash, almost. For, as the figure appeared, Isobel 
addressed it. 

“Deborah, have you waited for my call. 

The white face and the tenuous form remained im¬ 
mobile. The eyes, deep set and far away, seemed to 
bore into us with an intense look. They commanded 
mv attention, for I had the sensation of having seen 
them before. Whose they were, where I had seen them, 
I could not have stated; but the odd impression that I 
had gazed upon them previously, and not long ago, 
either, persisted. Yet how could I have known the 
woman who had been Deborah ? She probably had been 
dead some years, perhaps many years, and where 
would I have run across her? Doubtless the thought 


Detective Sullivan Finds the Murderer 135 

that I knew the eyes was illusive; calm reason said no, 
I had never seen them; but—had I ? 

Isobel tried the wraith with several other questions, 
yet received no answer. Was it that her father alone 
had the key? She tried her again and again, yet it 
was only at the eighth query that words first came 
from the figure, and these had no relation to the 
question asked. 

“Consider thy father,” fell slowly on our ears; the 
words seem to come from far, far off; in the distance 
beyond great hills, across wide valleys, onward it flows 
with the steady music of a stream, faintly whispering. 
“Consider thy father; as he is now, so shall you be; 
consider, repent.” 

As the final words began to roll forth in the distance, 
I drew my feet toward me, slowly, quietly; unloosed my 
arm from Isobel and with a kick at the chair in which 
I was sitting that dashed it backward, hurled myself 
at the figure. I grasped—nothing; instead I banged 
into the door between the two rooms with a thud that 
nearly deprived me of my senses. 

I had been in no position to make a quick move; 
my feet were beneath the table, my chair close to Iso- 
bel’s, and she sat between me and the apparition; so 
that the move I made, while I tried to make it quickly, 
had consumed much time. As I made the noise kicking 
over the chair, the figure had vanished like a flash. 
There was no fading out. 

The butler’s story of the figure floating across the 
room was in my mind. As I struck the door and found 
no spirit, it recurred to me with redoubled force. 
What held the bedroom beyond; what unknown there 


136 The Fangs of the Serpent 

lay in wait for me? With curari? Or what fled at my 
approach? 

I surely disliked to open that door. The instincts 
of a long line of forebears with banshees roosting on 
their rooftrees and pixies working about their places 
o’ nights, cried “Forbear.” It was because I really was 
such a coward that I forced myself to find the knob 
and open the door. This, too, took time; I couldn’t 
see and, not being able to recall which side of the door 
held the knob, I had to grope about until I found it. 
As I pulled open the door and rushed through, there 
was nothing to be seen, save a luminous patch of mist 
or vapor, that drifted away between the two windows. 
Even as I watched it, it disappeared. I called to 
Isobel to turn on the lights. I was not acquainted with 
the location of the switch in her father’s room, but 
when she lighted up the study, enough illumination 
filtered in so that I at once spied it at the right-hand 
side of the doorway. As I flooded the room with light, 
I looked about in hopes of seeing something that was 
out of place, or something upset. Everything was 
spick and span. The rooms were dusted and cleaned 
every day, that was self-evident. 

Now I had to make explanation to Isobel. 

“Oh, Larry, how could you? Just when she was 
getting ready to talk,” and the dear girl showed keen 
distress. I tried to take her in my arms, but she 
eluded me. 

“Darling,” and I gave over the attempt and stood 
in the doorway between the two rooms. Under the 
stress of emotion, I fear my voice trembled. “When¬ 
ever I hear any one threaten your dear self, may I rot 


Detective Sullivan Finds the Murderer 137 

in the lowest pits of hell, if I don’t dash to throttle the 
life out of them, even as I did tonight.” 

“Threat? Larry, how can you,” and Isobel eyed 
me in amaze. “Deborah would not. She loves me.” 

“Her words have a peculiar manner of showing it, 
then.” 

“But, Larry, what she said was right and true. All 
she said was—now let me think—yes, what she said 
was, ‘Consider your father; as he is, so shall you be; 
repent.’ ” 

“No threat,” I argued. “Isn’t ‘As he is now, so 
shall you be,’ about as strong a one as she can make?” 

“Oh, you dear old boy,” and she came close, reaching 
up to grasp the lapels of my coat. “Thinking of pro¬ 
tecting me; yes, though it was from what was never 
intended. Why, all she meant was that all flesh is 
mortal and that some day I, too, shall be as father.” 

“And heaven grant that day is years and years in 
the future. But what about the ‘consider, repent,’ ” 
and my arms held her close. “Why the necessity of 
adding them?” 

“Just to show you, you fond old silly, that I am a 
wicked creature and have many sins of which I must 
needs repent. Now, do not dispute me; I say they are 
many and I know.” 

That ended it for that evennig. Who was I to dis¬ 
turb her faith in her father? If I voiced all the suspi¬ 
cions I had of Deborah, poor Isobel, if she came to 
share them, w r ould certainly lose some of the implicit 
trust she had in her father. Yet it seemed to me, as I 
thought over the situation, that if Abe and I were 
right, she would have to learn a lot of unpleasant 
things about Mr. Oswald. 


138 The Fangs of the Serpent 

Yet, there was the ever present consideration, 
Wasn’t she the one that was in the right? Was not 
this a genuine materialization? I have been through 
psychic experiences that left me in no condition to 
doubt. In this case there was as much reason why I 
should credit Deborah’s apparition, as there was that 
I accept the others. To me, the one suspicious thing 
was the threat. But was it a threat? Was not the 
intuition of Isobel correct? Was it not more of a 
solemn warning? 

The more I looked at the words Deborah had spoken, 
“Consider thy father; as he is now, so shall you be; 
consider, repent,” the more certain I became that 
Isobel was right, though it looked and sounded as 
though some one had put together parts of three or 
four Biblical quotations. As I walked slowly down to 
the office, after rushing home and getting into my 
working suit, in the glamor of contentment and hap¬ 
piness Isobel threw about me, I admitted to myself that 
I was badly off the track. The spirit of Deborah had 
returned yet another time to cheer Isobel, whom she 
loved; bless the dear old soul for that, though of course 
she could not help the loving. 

Every night now I made it a practice of running 
down to the office; there was nothing moving in the 
Oswald case and I was on hand if they should need me. 
But there was no call for this night and I went back 
to my room. 

Next morning I stopped in to see Abe Sullivan; he 
was not at his office, and one of the force told me he 
had not been in for two days. I left word for him to 
come up and see me when he got back. Returning 
home, I wrote for a while, then lay down for a nap. 


Detective Sullivan Finds the Murderer 139 

Abe came along at two o’clock and woke me up. He 
was full of news. I gave him my chair while I dropped 
back on the couch. For a moment he busied himself in 
lighting a lean brown cigar which he extracted care¬ 
fully from an inside pocket. This drawing well, he 
cocked his legs up on my table and, leaning back, 
began. 

“At last this list of 4 M. E.’s’ has turned out some¬ 
thing worth while. I’ve worked along down through 
it, hunting up, visiting and talking with people. Lots 
of ‘M. E.V have moved away and I can’t trace them. 
Others are dead. Some of the rest were queer, but none 
of them appear to have had any particular dealings 
with old Oswald. Finally I ran across an old man, a 
former employee at the plants, who told me of a most 
unusual happening. It so happens that the man most 
concerned also is an ‘M. E.’, Matthias Erliesbein, to 
give it in full.” Abe paused and I nodded. So far, so 
good. 

“The thing happened away back in ’79, when to 
belong to a labor union was to be an anarchist. At 
that time, some of the men in Oswald’s southside plant 
got a union of some kind started. I suppose it was a 
weak, visionary sort of affair. Toss me the matches.” 
In his eagerness to retail his information, he had for¬ 
gotten to draw on his cigar. 

So Abe’s list didn’t go back far enough after all, I 
thought, as he was working on his cigar. But never 
mind that; apparently he had found something. After 
he got the weed lighted and had taken two or three 
puffs, he resumed. 

“Anyway, Erliesbein was on the committee sent to 
the old man, then not such a patriarch, with a long 


140 


The Fangs of the Serpent 

list of demands. As we look at things nowadays, those 
were mighty conservative requests. They thought 
twelve hours a day too long and fifteen cents an hour 
too small. Then they wanted the dangerous machines 
protected, the union recognized, and a few little things 
like that. I’m giving it to you straight; one of the 
members of the union who gave me the story, had a 
copy of the old demands.” 

“I’ll bet that J. Marion Oswald fired the whole com¬ 
mittee,” I stated; it was a safe guess from what I knew 
of Mr. Oswald’s early career. 

“You win. He did. He not only fired them but he 
blacklisted them; and his remarks, as he tied the can 
to them, must have been far from elevating. Of course 
the union didn’t strike. Those early labor organiza¬ 
tions were bluffs. They held a meeting that night after 
Erliesbein and the two others on the committee got 
thrown out. They were fireworks, all right; but it 
seems that Erliesbein got up before them and made 
some direct threats against J. Marion’s life; swore he’d 
never be content, never rest a day, until he made the 
old boy sweat blood for his crime against humanity; 
and I guess there was a plenty in that ‘crime against 
humanity’ spiel. Oswald’s workers used to die like flies 
from the T. B., and those that escaped it, drank them¬ 
selves to death. It was all they had to look forward 
to, from what Oswald offered them. But to go on. 
When the old man had suffered enough, Erliesbein 
swore that he’d kill him. What do you think of it?” 

I shook my head and laughed at him. 

“Say, Abe, if that’s all you’ve got, you’d better drop 
it. If every man that threatened J. Marion Oswald’s 
life was behind the bars, we’d be building a lot of new 


Detective Sullivan Finds the Murderer 141 

buildings down at Joliet. Erliesbein never made an 
attempt, did he?” 

“Not that we can find out, but he talked enough. 
As he couldn’t get a job, for the blacklist was per¬ 
fectly legal in those days, he bought a corner saloon 
and helped to send his fellows out on the long trail. 
But he kept right on talking and threatening. Never 
a day went by that he didn’t rehearse the iniquities of 
Oswald and tell what he’d do to him some day. His 
place became a hangout for a really radical bunch, and 
Erliesbein was right in with them.” 

“But consider, man,” I argued. “That happened 
over forty years ago. Your man must be an old fel¬ 
low. He’d never have been able to carry out such a 
murder as this one. Have you been able to trace the 
curari to him?” 

“No, and I don’t expect to. If he was cute enough 
to turn this trick, we aren’t going to stumble on any 
sale of poison recorded to him. But never mind that; 
consider these facts. First, he had a strong motive; 
second, there are his constant threats; and last, when 
he heard that J. Marion had died, he nodded his head 
and chortled, ‘Good; at last some one is getting back 
at the old devil for his cussed meanness.’ And mind 
you, this was before we had more than a suspicion that 
it was murder that he was proclaiming it. His further 
remarks showed that he’d have liked to add, ‘If I would, 
I could tell something.’ That you may know how he 
felt, all I got to say is that he kept open house all the 
day he heard of J. Marion’s death. Pretty fair, eh? 
We’ve got just about enough to make him talk.” 

“Abe,” I chuckled, as he finished, “are you open to 
a little bet on the side? If you are, I’ll lay you five to 


142 The Fangs of the Serpent 

one that this man Erliesbein was not the murderer of 
Mr. Oswald. And I’ll lay you two to one that he was 
not even indirectly concerned and that he knows noth¬ 
ing about it. What do you say? Willing to take the 
short end of these bets?” 

Abe wasn’t. I do not think that there is a drop of 
Scotch blood in his veins, but he has all their cautious 
and canny ways. He wagered only on absolute cer¬ 
tainties. As I thought, Abe wasn’t as sure as he was 
trying to make out. 

On the face of it, Erliesbein could not be the man. 
Whoever it was that had reached the fourth floor of 
that house filled with servants, killed the master and 
descended without being seen, was some one with a 
brain that had few equals upon earth. To think out 
such a plan, and to put it into execution, required 
executive ability of a high order. 

Do men of that calibre go into the business of run¬ 
ning a corner saloon? Hardly. Nor are they of the 
class that take all the world into their confidence con¬ 
cerning their wrongs. These are nursed in secret; in 
secret they plan their revenge and for it bide their 
time. If the murderer of J. Marion Oswald was ever 
found, I felt that he would fill some such requirements 
as these. 

He would be a well-educated man, not only in book¬ 
ish lines, but also in the broader fields of travel and 
of practical matters. 

He would be wealthy; not, perhaps, with even a 
moderate sized fortune, but at least comfortably 
well off. 

He would not be a very young man, nor yet an old 
man. For Iris act showed not only vigor and quickness 


Detective Sullivan Finds the Murderer 14*3 

such as go with youth, but also the calmness and self- 
possession of maturer years; without both of these he 
could not have succeeded. 

It would probably be found that he had waited long 
years for his revenge; indeed, it might well be that it 
was not a wrong to himself that he punished. 

Was Erliesbein such a man? I very much doubted 
it, though I did not know him. Nor did Sullivan, yet, 
I was sure. Abe’s description was a composite por¬ 
trait made up from the words of many others. 

I decided that for the present there was no great 
necessity to inform Abe of my attempt to strangle a 
ghost. He had enough to work on, with his present 
theory. I’d keep the happening to myself and do a 
little investigating on the quiet. 

Just then there came a loud bang on my door that 
brought me to my feet with a jump; it sounded as 
though some one had brought a battering-ram, and was 
attempting to force an entrance. But in a second, it 
was followed by a faint, weak tapping. “Come in,” I 
shouted, as I started for the door* 

Slowly it opened. 


CHAPTER XI. 


“do you want to die?” 

I N response to my invitation the door swung slowly 
on its hinges; well toward the top of the gap 
appeared a round fur cap and immediately beneath it 
a high forehead; each part entered deliberately in 
almost as stately a manner as a great ship glides into 
its slip. Below the forehead emerged two deep-set 
eyes with a narrow, thin beak standing between; a firm, 
thin-lipped mouth and a square chin followed as delib¬ 
erately as before by a long neck swathed in a w r hite 
muffler, narrow shoulders, a long waist and arms; and 
long thin legs with gaiters and rubbers. 

Abe sat and stared as this apparition oozed into 
the room; but I had no sooner seen the eyes than I 
bounded forward with both hands extended. 

“How are you, Dr. Herron ?” I cried gleefully, as I 
grasped his one free hand and wrung it heartily. His 
other was carrying his traveling bag which he carefully 
and methodically deposited before replying. 

“Quite well, thank you.” His quiet tones flowed as 
steadily as he had moved. “I am sorry that I made 
such a commotion at your door. The carpet at the 
head of the stairway was not securely fastened. My 
foot became entangled and I was precipitated at your 
entrance with the result that one end of my bag came 
in violent contact with a panel. I trust that no dam- 
144 


“Do You Want to Die?” 


145 


age was done. How are you finding yourself and how 
are matters progressing?” 

Abe was watching the newcomer with a covert smile 
on his lips. Dr. Herron was wont to be accepted for 
something he was not by those who met him for the 
first time. 

“All fine, Doctor, all fine. Had anything to eat yet? 
And—oh, yes, this is my friend, Mr. Abe Sullivan. Mr. 
Sullivan, Dr. Herron.” 

The two men acknowledged the introduction and 
shook hands. Yes, he had already had lunch, Dr. 
Herron remarked, as I helped him off with his coat, 
took his bag and cap, with the coat, into my bedroom. 
When I returned, he and Sullivan were chatting. As 
the doctor was seated comfortably, I went back to the 
couch. 

Herron was explaining his trip. He had been held 
up for a day somewhere in Kentucky, the heavy snows 
wrecking a freight running before the train on which 
he was. He had reached Chicago about the middle of 
the afternoon, having had dinner on the diner. He had 
taxied directly from the station to my rooms. We 
talked along, exchanging news, and drifted from this 
into reminiscences. Dr. Herron described some of the 
cases he had been called into during the past few 
months. Only he did not call them “cases.” To him 
they were “psychic manifestations.” Abe Sullivan was 
an interested listener; he didn’t care much for those 
investigated that had proved to have a strong psychic 
basis; but when Cyrus Herron described those in which 
he had detected fraud or trickery, Abe was all ears. 
He was particularly interested in the episode of the 
man who heard spirit singers. Abe insisted that in 


146 


The Fangs of the Serpent 

some ways it paralleled our mystery of the death of 
Mr. Oswald. 

“Here we have a murder, or a suicide, to unravel, 
and we find that in this case, too, the spirits were 
mighty interested in conveying a warning, 1 * he ex¬ 
plained. “Nearly like the poor devil you were telling 
about,” and he nodded at Dr. Herron. 

“Of course I am in no position to judge of the simi¬ 
larity or dissimilarity, as I know nothing of the death 
of which you speak. But I am led to infer from your 
remarks that there were psychic manifestations directly 
concerned in the taking off of this Mr. Oswald. If 
such is the case, it would greatly interest me and I 
should like to go into the matter when I can find the 
time. Just at present I am en route to St. Paul. I 
only stopped off here because my friend Larry asked 
for my advice in a matter which puzzled him. I can 
give him but a few hours, but perhaps can assist some¬ 
what.” 

“Why, Doctor,” I remarked in amazement. I knew 
he was forgetful, but I did think he would remember the 
details of as big a case as this we were on, and at least 
the name of Oswald, one of America’s greatest. “The 
case Mr. Sullivan mentioned is the very one I wrote 
you about.” 

“So you did,” he replied, entirely without embar¬ 
rassment. “The details had escaped me. I do not 
load my mind with mental notes for which I have no 
immediate use.” He turned to me and with a leisurely 
gesture toward Abe, went on: “I take it that this gen¬ 
tleman is connected with the matter.” 

“Oh, yes; connected with the case and with the 
police,” I informed him. 


“Do You Want to Die?” 


147 


“Then I judge that the matter .is one in which evi¬ 
dence of fraudulent practices are plainly manifested. 
In that case, there is no prospect of my advice or 
assistance being needed or desired.” 

“Hold on, Doc,” I protested. “You are getting 
ahead of this game. Why, there were all kinds of spirit 
manifestations and they look like the real thing.” In 
my haste I stretched the truth somewhat. “J. Marion 
Oswald was himself a student of the supernatural.” 

Here in my hurry I again crossed a crochet of the 
Doctor. He looked at me in a reproachful manner. 

“Excuse me, Larry; there is no supernatural. 
Surely you recall my strictures on the use of that word, 
the summer you and I were lucky enough to stumble 
upon the correct solution of the episodes of the super¬ 
normal.” 

Yes; well I knew, but in the haste of speaking it had 
slipped my mind. Two things there were about which 
Cyrus Herron was very particular. One was that he 
achieved his successes in his work by pure luck—and 
to hear him tell of them, it did look as though luck 
was the predominating feature. The other concerned 
the supernatural. Speaking partly for the benefit of 
Abe Sullivan, he added: “The word commonly used by 
those who desire accuracy is ‘supernormal.’ ” 

I straightened out my remarks and let it go at that. 

“Just how does the supernormal enter into the death 
of Mr. Oswald?” he then wanted to know. Between 
Abe and me, he received a history of the case as far as 
it had developed. I began. 

“J. Marion Oswald, one of this city’s wealthiest men, 
and a power in the world of finance, a man well on in 
the seventies, is found dead, or at least in a dying con- 


148 The Fangs of the Serpent 

dition, on the fourth floor of his home; his only 
daughter discovered him.” 

Abe put in, as I stopped for a moment: 

“Only one exit, door to stairs, through main part of 
house. Windows all locked. But—he died of poison 
curari.” 

“Ah,” said Cyrus Herron with little interest. 

“Two holes inside left wrist; holes inch and a half 
apart. No weapon found near him, or on that floor 
or in the house. Daughter, first to find him, calls maid; 
they straighten him out and send for aid. When body 
is lifted, torn corner of paper with letters ‘p-e-n-t’ is 
picked up. Paper cheap ordinary kind letters 
typed by Densmore machine. Nobody knows anything 
about it.” Abe stopped; these were the facts he con¬ 
sidered of greatest moment, for the spirit of Deborah 
as yet could not be labeled and tagged. 

Sullivan pulled out his cigar case, and passed it to 
Cyrus Herron. The Doctor did not smoke. Abe 
selected one himself and lit up while I took up the tale. 
I felt that nothing yet said had more than a passing 
interest for the psychic investigator. 

“Mr. Oswald and his daughter had been experi¬ 
menting for some time in the psychic field and had 
developed mediumistic powers.” 

“At least the old man had, according to the girl,” 
Abe interrupted. 

“Hold on, Abe,” I came back at him. “I’m not so 
sure but what Miss Oswald has the power, too. But 
to continue what I started to say. Mr. Oswald, of 
late months, had been having seances with a spirit 
called Deborah. His method of summoning her was 
by taps which his daughter remembered well enough 


“Do You Want to Die?” 


149 


to reproduce for us. Abe recognized these as the 
Morse code for the letters ‘M’ and ‘E!’ He thinks that 
it was used as a signal call, knowingly on the part of 
Mr. Oswald, but Miss Oswald affirms that it was not; 
that the raps were used by mere chance; that she was 
the one who devised them.” 

“Oh, she did, did she?” Sullivan’s voice had a curi¬ 
ous undertone that I resented. But I heeded it not. 
I went on. 

“This spirit answered questions both as to the past 
and the future with surprising accuracy, as we have 
the account from Miss Oswald’s lips. The wraith was 
accustomed to opening each evening’s session with the 
words, ‘Do not forget, Marion; before it is too late, 
repent.’ The last words she uttered were sometimes 
this same formula.” 

Materializations were common occurrences with Dr. 
Herron. Still, I could see that he was somewhat inter¬ 
ested. He now asked a question. 

“Where did this Deborah appear?” 

“In the Oswald home, in Mr. Oswald’s study,” I 
answered. “The butler also claims to have seen the 
spirit very late one night when neither Mr. Oswald nor 
his daughter were at home. It appeared in his mas¬ 
ter’s bedroom which adjoined the study. Since Mr. 
Oswald’s death, I had not supposed that the spirit of 
Deborah would again appear. But she has; I have 
seen her.” 

Abe sat up with a jerk and eyed me with reproach. 
I had not yet told him of my experience. 

“You’ve seen her,” he cried. “When and where? 
Why didn’t you let me in on it?” 

I explained that I had not yet had an opportunity; 


150 The Fangs of the Serpent 

that he had been telling me of his finding a suspect 
through the initials “M. E.” he was tracing, and that 
just‘then Herron had come in. So now I related just 
what had occurred. I detailed how Isobel had called 
for some time without result; then how the answering 
knocks came. 

After a few moments of these, she appeared. I 
should say that she was a woman of about medium 
height, rather slender, if the moving draperies didn’t 
belie my judgment. I cannot tell how old she was, 3 ’ 
and gave the reasons. 

“There was one thing I may mention,” I added, as 
we sat in silence for a few seconds. “It may be just a 
phantasy of mine, but at the time I was strongly im¬ 
pressed with the belief that I had seen her face some¬ 
where before, or at least the eyes; when I heard her 
voice, if it really was a voice, it struck me that, in a 
vague way, it was familiar.” 

“I wish I’d been there.” Abe chewed savagely at 
the butt of his cigar. “We’d have gone to the bottom 
of this mystery in a hurry. Let me get my hands on 
that Deborah and we’ll find out who helped J. Marion 
Oswald out of the world.” 

“You will?” I smiled. “How about my luck? I 
made a dash at her and she flashed out and left me to 
run bang up against the door. As if that wasn’t 
enough, I saw the spirit fading away in the air of the 
bedroom.” 

“There was no light in either room, I take it,” Cyrus 
Herron asked. 

“No. It was not wholly dark in the bedroom, though, 
for while the shades were down at the window facing 


“Do You Want to Die?” 151 

east, they had not been lowered over the two to the 
south.” 

Dr. Herron asked many questions about the arrange¬ 
ments of the room. We made it clear to him. After 
he got the locations of the doors, windows and other 
articles placed mentally in relation to each other, he 
asked. 

“Was there a light outside the house?” 

“None near it; there are two street lights at its 
front, neither directly in front,” I replied, but I wanted 
to tell the rest of my story. “Let me get along to the 
last message,” I added. 

“Last message,” echoed Abe. “Another one.” 

“Sure there is.” I hastened on. “Deborah was not 
very communicative this time. All she said before she 
dematerialized were a few words. But they were a 
plenty. There can be no doubt that just as the others 
were intended for her father, these were meant for 
Isobel.” 

“Isobel, eh?” Abe grinned. Dr. Herron turned and 
eyed me. I hurried on with the narrative. 

“ ‘Consider thy father; as he is now, so shall you be; 
consider, repent/ How is that for a neat little threat? 
Miss Oswald differs greatly with me as to what it 
means. She says it is but a warning of the temporal 
value of life; that some day she must follow her father. 
I do not think it was so intended. I believe that the 
message conceals a good, broad admonition to do some¬ 
thing Deborah wanted done, or take the consequences. 
But Miss Oswald almost convinced me that she was 
right. What do you think?” I looked from one to 
the other as I spoke the question. Abe was ready with 
his opinion. 


152 The Fangs of the Serpent 

“Threat? Sure it’s a threat. All we got to do now 
is to find this Deborah and a little third degree work 
and we’ll know all about how this curari got into J. 
Marion Oswald. I told you before that if we could 
get hold of this spirit, we’d be all to the good.” He 
nodded sagely as he blew a great cloud of smoke toward 
the ceiling. 

I wanted to come back with, “Yes, and not long ago 
you were swearing that Mr. Oswald was a suicide. 
And even today you had found someone you thought 
could give you information, if he were not the guilty 
person.” But I did not. Let Sullivan hop from theory 
to theory; what was that to me? He and I had helped 
each other on many an occasion, and I was not anxious 
to get him down on me by any uncalled for pleasantry 
concerning his short memory. Dr. Herron was not so 
sure that it was a threat. 

“I am always willing to give full credit in latitude 
to any statement,” he commented. “I cannot see why 
I should assume that everything another speaks is 
meant to be understood in the light of the worst possi¬ 
ble construction that can be put upon it. Why not 
take the best? Personally, I do not see why Miss 
Oswald’s interpretation should not be the correct one.” 
He looked at Abe; Abe said nothing; Doctor Herron 
went on. 

“In either event, that the apparition is produced by 
fraud, or if it be genuine, I assume that there is no 
connection between Miss Oswald and the spirit, or you 
would have mentioned it. Therefore, if it be genuine, 
the greater number of reasons favor its being a con¬ 
ventional warning. There would be no good reason 
for a messenger from the other world to make threats. 


“Do You Want to Die?” 153 

Should the manifestation be fraudulent, there are fully 
as many arguments for the milder interpretation as 
there are for the stronger. No, on the logic of proba¬ 
bilities, Miss Oswald’s faith would be justified.” 

“Then why introduce the ‘Consider thy father’? If 
it was a gentle hint to prepare for the life eternal, 
why not give it direct?” I felt all the old doubts 
surging back, just as they had risen that evening. I 
was anxious to know how Herron would answer this 
question. 

“From what you say, I think that you may be 
charged with breaking up the seance. If so, no one 
knows what further messages along this line you in¬ 
terrupted. Suppose that Mr. Oswald, but lately ar¬ 
rived on the other plane, is trying to get word back 
to his daughter and the message became mixed with 
another one. This is not the first I have known of a 
peculiar mixing of ideas to develop in a medium’s mes¬ 
sages.” Cyrus Herron was no longer slowly methodical. 
He was aroused and I noticed that when he is, every 
sense he possesses is keenly alert; then his slow steady 
movements of speech and action become abrupt and 
sharp. 

Of course Abe maintained his views and the two 
argued back and forth at some length. Sullivan had 
the last word with an unanswerable argument, the 
“we’ll show you.” 

“When we get Deborah,” he insisted, “we’ll find that 
she was connected with Matthias Erliesbein. Heir 
coming at the call of ‘M. E.,’ those being his initials, 
together with the hatred he bore J. Marion, is going 
to get him in bad still further.” 

Dr. Herron now turned to this new subject, of which 


154* The Fangs of the Serpent 

he had not heard. He looked toward me as he spoke. 

“You mentioned the letters ‘M’ and ‘E’ as being 
those with which the spirit was summoned. What has 
this Matthias Erliesbein to do with those?” 

I explained how we thought that “M. E.” might be 
the initials of someone well known to Mr. Oswald, 
someone of whom he might have thought a great deal, 
and that if we could find that person, it would go far 
toward solving the problem of Mr. Oswald’s death. 

I told him how my efforts to find such a person were 
without result, although Miss Oswald had named over 
as many of her father’s old business associates and 
friends as she could recall; how Sullivan had gone to 
the offices and plants of the Oswald companies and what 
excellent success he had had. Abe grunted when I said 
“excellent success.” 

Going on, I described the detective’s painstaking 
method of investigation, and how at last he was sure 
it had borne fruit. I gave the details, with Abe’s 
assistance, just as he had narrated them to me. 

“Did you discover if there had ever been another 
encounter between the two?” Dr. Herron asked 
Sullivan. 

Abe was sure that there had been only the one. 
Erliesbein had so fallen into the habit of telling his 
great grievance and his vow for revenge, that Abe 
was positive that if the two had met again, what with 
the violent tongue-lashing Erliesbein would have been 
prompted to administer, and the equally violent reply 
he would have received, for Oswald was a man with a 
competent command of invective, there would have been 
more for the old seeker after revenge to cherish. 

“That leaves your position in connecting him with 


“Do You Want to Die?” 


155 


the death in rather a precarious position,” Dr. Herron 
commented when Abe had finished. This drew the 
detective forward to the edge of his chair where he 
poised as though to spring at my friend. 

“It does?” truculently. “How’s that?” 

Dr. Herron hastened to attempt an apology that 
was unneeded. 

“Mr. Sullivan, I have no desire nor intention of in¬ 
truding on your field of endeavor. My work simply 
is that of an investigator of psychic phenomena. I am 
not concerned with the legal or other sides of these 
demonstrations. I am not at all concerned with solving 
the problem of Mr. Oswald’s death, except incidentally. 
I retract what I just said; if it gives you offense, 
consider the words as never uttered.” 

But Abe was not a bumptious, opinionated individual. 
He wanted to know, and know why, so requested the 
Doctor to give all his reasons. 

“Not a bit of it, Dr. Herron,” his voice was cordial. 
“I don’t want you to take it back. I’m not one of 
those fellows that thinks that everyone coming into a 
case is going to take all the glory for himself. Further¬ 
more, I don’t care if he does get it. He’s welcome, for 
all of me. What I want to know is how the murder 
was done so we can catch the murderer. I’ve got enough 
of a reputation not to have to worry over a failure 
or two. And I’m big enough to want to hear where 
my theories fall down, even before I take them out and 
try and put them into action. Let’s hear the big 
objection.” 

Sullivan’s voice was so hearty and his manner so 
convincing, that the Doctor complied. 

“If you are correct in assuming that Mr. Oswald 


156 


The Fangs of the Serpent 

was aware of the meaning in code of the raps he used 
—and this seems probable—then the letters stood for 
one very near and dear to him. In which event, why 
should he be calling with the initials of a man such 
as Matthias Erliesbein, whom he had seen but once? 
Did Erliesbein make such an impression that Mr. 
Oswald would call him through a medium? And if 
Erliesbein is still living, why call him anyway? He 
certainly could not send his spirit from the other land, 
when it was still on earth. Once again; does it seem 
probable that Mr. Oswald would become so attached 
to a man that he would use the psychic route to com¬ 
municate with him? If there was an M. E., isn’t it 
almost certain that the one he was seeking to reach was 
a woman?” 

I do not know what Abe thought but I had to admit 
that the logic was certainly that way. It explained 
a lot of things. A man like J. Marion Oswald, living 
a purely self-dominated life, a life centering always on 
self, does not drop his life’s training in habit and 
thought when the end of life draws near. It wasn’t 
the desire scientifically to investigate supernormal 
realms that led to his taking it up. It was either to 
convince himself that J. Marion Oswald would not end 
when he lost the earthly garb, but would continue to 
exist after what we call death; or it was a want, ,a 
need on his part for someone lost to him. All through 
his life he had found that nothing of earth was denied 
him. Was he going to stand idly by and go without 
the thing or things he wanted, simply because another 
world was supposed to intervene? Not he. Others 
had begun to effect a connection between the two 
worlds; so would he. He had done it; to his daughter’s 


“Do You Want to Die?” 157 

satisfaction, at least. And in her judgment, to his 
own. 

He had been a sly old campaigner all his life. He 
was trained to work in the dark; the dark was pro¬ 
tection ; to use the open meant loss of money. This 
habit, too, had gone with him into his search for his 
desire. Here his trail had been carefully covered, so 
that his daughter, with him night after night at the 
seances, never suspected that he used M. E. knowingly, 
or that he was trying to reach a particular spirit. 

If we could get at the truth of the matter, I suspect 
that Mr. Oswald suggested to Isobel that she had 
devised the series of raps. But, after all, that didn’t 
matter. The affairs he had so carefully concealed were 
being slowly revealed. I took new hope; eventually we 
would find out who injected the curari into the veins 
of the multimillionaire and escaped without leaving a 
trace. 

Abe took us out to supper, then left us and we came 
back to my rooms afterward. I telephoned down to the 
office, and as there was no press of work, decided to 
stay with the doctor that evening. He had but a few 
hours he could spare and I planned to take him to the 
Oswald home early next day and let him look over the 
scene of Deborah’s materializations. Abe wouldn’t be 
with us. He had started the wheels turning and ex¬ 
pected that in their revolutions Matthias Erliesbein, 
under the pressure of their relentless grip, would let 
drop a few facts. The hater of J. Marion Oswald 
would have the chance to make good his boast, if it 
were a boast, that “he could tell something if he would.” 

Next morning we started as early as possible for the 
Oswald home. Tasker admitted us and Isobel received 


158 The Fangs of the Serpent 

us with a smile that set my heart to jumping. She 
took us into the reception room and I explained how 
Dr. Herron was so tied up with engagements that he 
could give us little time. 

She was disappointed but not disheartened. Her 
first thought was to find the party guilty of her father’s 
death; and she realized that Herron’s interest in the 
case was from the supernormal side, that he was more 
interested in solving the status of Deborah, than in who 
drove the poisoned tipped weapon into her father’s 
arm. In regard to Deborah, Isobel was convinced that 
there was nothing to be discovered. 

“I had so hoped that you would consent to investi¬ 
gate the whole problem,” she told him. “I have heard 
so much of what you have accomplished on other 
mysteries.” 

“Miss Oswald,” and Dr. Herron bowed as he in¬ 
sisted, “everything I have achieved, outside of purely 
psychic matters, has been the result of sheer luck. I 
simply stumble upon some fact that the least trained 
intellect could not fail to see pointed to a certain 
conclusion. This luck cannot cling to me forever. I 
would not know what to do to set about discovering 
who killed your father. I couldn’t follow a clue, as I 
believe they are called, a hundred yards without 
losing it.” 

Isobel looked at me, slightly puzzled. I smiled back, 
meaningly, and she understood. 

“You are doing yourself an injustice, I am sure,” 
she said. “In these days of blatant self-advertisement, 
your modesty does you credit. But with Mr. Bowen 
at work on the problem, your advice, I am sure, will 


“Do You Want to Die?” 


159 


contribute greatly toward discovering who killed father. 
Oh, I must find out, I must find out.” 

The anguish in her voice cut me deeply. Poor 
girl! I wished that Dr. Herron were miles away, that 
I might comfort her. Prom her tone one might have 
inferred that she suspected someone, and had fears 
that what she thought might be true; but I knew that 
she was worrying for fear we should not find the 
murderer and that her father would forever be branded 
in the minds of all with the stigma of “suicide.” 

She took us to her father’s study, which Dr. Herron 
most wished to see. He examined the room closely, 
and performed a like service in Mr. Oswald’s bedroom. 
I showed him where the misty remnant of Deborah had 
dissolved. 

“Rather odd that the spirit had to come into this 
room fully to dematerialize. It appears that it could 
be accomplished in the study; you bear witness to that. 
But, if so, why continue it in this room?” I could not 
solve the problem he propounded. Or was he giving 
me a hint? 

He walked about the room gauging the point where 
I last saw the wraith, and finally looked out of the 
windows toward the street. The easternmost window 
in the south wall seemed to meet some requirement he 
had postulated. He called me over to a position he 
had taken between the two openings, and directed my 
attention to the street lamp. 

“Notice that it is placed at such an angle with this 
wall of the house that you can get a bit of a glimpse 
of it by looking through this opening diagonally. Some 
rays of light must enter along the same angle.” 

I grasped his meaning. The spirit as I had seen 


160 The Fangs of the Serpent 

it must have been illuminated, at least in transverse 
section, by the beam of light. And only that upon 
which had fallen the light rays, had been visible. No 
matter how self-illumined Deborah had been in the 
study, in Mr. Oswald’s chamber she lost it. 

We returned to the study and both Isobel and I 
showed just where the spirit had materialized. I must 
have lost myself badly in my dash to capture her, for 
I had run into the door, while the place occupied by 
Deborah had been three feet to the right of the door¬ 
way. 

Dr. Herron asked if we had noticed any noises. We 
testified to the knocking, to an apparent trampling 
in the room overhead before the appearance of Deborah, 
and to the spirit’s voice speaking the warning. But 
we both affirmed that we heard not another sound. 

“No door opening or closing, no footsteps ?” 

“No ; I am sure there were none,” I answered. 

“Spirits do not have to open doors or to walk about,” 
Isobel added. Her faith in Deborah was untouched. 

Dr. Herron intimated that he had seen as much as 
he desired and was now ready to leave these rooms. I 
then asked him to come up to the museum. I wanted 
him to see where the body of Mr. Oswald had been 
found. Isobel, too, was anxious he should visit the 
fourth floor, but she could not accompany us. 

“You’ll be careful, will you not, Larry dear? There 
are so many dangerous things up there,” she said in a 
low tone as we left the room, Dr. Herron preceding us 
at some distance under the charge of Tasker. “Father 
always warned me never to touch spears or arrows; 
so many are poisoned. And he told me to keep away 
from the rattlesnakes in the snake dance group. The 


“Do You Want to Die?” 


161 


last warning lie gave was concerning that old chest 
from Peru. He said that there was something peculiar 
about it. That no one understood just what it was, 
and for me not to go near it. You will not get into 
any danger, will you, dear?” she asked. 

Of course I promised. Who wouldn’t; no, I’d take 
the utmost care, for her sake, not to get cut on spears 
or other weapons. 

The butler took us up. The room was no longer 
locked and barred. After the search Abe and I had 
made, the police had unsealed the collections. We 
entered; Tasker returned to the first floor. 

I hastened to show him where the body lay when 
first I saw it; where I found the scrap of paper and 
then pointed out the spot beneath the tapestry and at 
the end of the chest, where Mr. Oswald was first dis¬ 
covered. 

Dr. Herron looked at the tapestry, stood before the 
place where the millionaire had fallen, but spoke no 
word. After some moments I walked around in front 
of the chest. I decided to show him the interior of 
the box and kneeled down to open it, remarking as I 
did so, 

“If this old relic could speak out, it would tell us 
what we want to know.” 

Experience had shown that it was opened with 
difficulty, but I knew the best method. I seized the 
upper hasp with one hand, while with the other I 
pressed down strongly with the other against the lower 
portion of the lock. I was straining strenuously when, 
in a breath, I was seized and hurled violently backward. 

“Do you want to die?” cried a voice in my ear. 


CHAPTER XII. 


THE MISSIVE WITH A CORNER GONE. 

M Y heart beat faster and I almost stopped breath¬ 
ing from the shock of fear; but this only lasted 
a few seconds. One moment I had been kneeling in 
front of the chest, conversing with Cyrus Herron; the 
next instant I was lying on my back, feet in air, 
some distance away; and in my ears were ringing the 
words, “Do you want to die?” 

No, I did not desire to have my existence terminated, 
especially not at this time when I had everything to 
live for. Nor could I conceive of any good reason why 
Cyrus Herron should offer me this sudden choice; 
unless he had but just taken leave of his senses. 

Yet it could not be that for, as I sat up, he was 
calmly standing before the box in intent deliberation. 
He was not even giving me the slightest consideration 
after having so rudely hurled me to one side. Ap¬ 
parently he had forgotten that I existed. 

“Say, Doc, do you always serve your friends like 
that?” I inquired as I climbed to my feet. “Or is it 
just a playful little way of yours?” 

He gave no heed to my question. With brows 
wrinkled in thought, he still gazed at the old chest from 
South America. My feelings, as well as my clothes, 
were a little ruffled and I tried him with another 
question. 


162 


The Missive With a Corner Gone 163 


“What do you mean by, ‘Do I want to die?’ Why 
did you jerk me back?” 

Slowly he turned and looked me in the eyes; there 
was no humor in his; his face was set with a serious 
expression. In a methodical manner he looked from 
me to the chest, studied it round and about, and then 
back again to me. 

“Larry, my boy,” his firm, clear tones carried con¬ 
viction, “I saved your life.” 

I was amazed; I could see no reason for such a state¬ 
ment; but his manner showed that he considered that 
he had spoken the truth. He had saved my life? I, 
too, looked closely at the chest and as I did so, Isobel’s 
warning came back to me. Was it the chest? If so, 
what was there that he had observed which had escaped 
the microscopic examination of Abe Sullivan and my¬ 
self? Had Dr. Herron, at a glance, noted the two 
sharp points that had delivered the death charge to 
Mr. Oswald? 

“Yes, young man, had you opened that chest, I am 
sure that movement would have been your last.” 

I laughed. 

“You are joking, Doctor. Why should the opening 
of the old box kill me?” 

“Had you raised that lid, I am positive that at that 
very moment I would have seen you fall and die.” 

“But why? Why? Where are the points that would 
scratch me? Why, I’ve opened the chest three or four 
times and Sullivan has had it opened more times than 
that; neither of us was injured.” 

“You’ve had it open? Open, and were not injured? 
I do not understand.” His expression showed his 
bewilderment. Gradually this expression faded and 


164 The Fangs of the Serpent 

his head dropped as he studied something unknown to 
me. Wrinkles crept up over his forehead and his 
eyes drifted into a far away look. For some moments, 
though his eyes roved about, he was lost to the things 
of this world. Remarks that I made fell on dull ears. 
Not that I hurled many at him. I knew his moods; 
in his own good time I would get the rights of it all. 

“Larry,” he asked, suddenly, “where did the chest 
come from?” 

I gave him what information I had. I told how it 
was discovered in a cave in Peru, near Urabamba, by 
Jesus Quintanilla, an Indian, and that it was reported 
to have been associated with many bones. I said that 
it probably was the work of natives of the time of the 
Incas, and had doubtless been placed in the burial cave 
by its owner or maker. 

“That chest made by an Indian? Nonsense,” Herron 
scoffed. “Look at the regularity of the spacing of the 
bandsand he pointed. “Notice the evenness in the 
designing, the balancing, the following of straight lines. 
Indian work lacks all that. In their productions is no 
balance of design such as is here plainly evident; nor 
such regularity of lines; no such truing them as to 
width. This chest has all the earmarks of a white 
man’s work.” 

“What of that?” I wanted to know. “Couldn’t some 
Indian have stolen it and hid it away in the cave; or 
have had his descendants bury it with him when he 
died?” 

“But, Larry, this is a treasure chest.” 

“A treasure chest?” Figuratively my mouth opened. 
Actually, I but repeated, dazedly, “A treasure chest!” 
Then it came to me that it had been empty. I added, 


The Missive With a Corner Gone 165 

“Well, it isn’t any more. There was no treasure in it 
when we opened it. Someone beat us to it.” 

“You haven’t grasped the point,” and Dr. Herron, 
as calmly and simply as though addressing a child, 
went on to explain. “It is not the treasure that is first 
in my thoughts. I mentioned that the chest was proba¬ 
bly made by a white man; and I now add that he was 
a Spaniard, for it is Spanish in design. Yet, to be 
truthful, I must also say that it is and it isn’t. The 
general form is such that I declare it might have been 
made by an Iberian. But the workmanship; never have 
I observed such crude, rough craft as this chest shows. 
But to go on. Now attend carefully, for it is this 
that led me to think that I had saved your life.” He 
leaned over and examined the lock a moment, some 
abrasion having caught his eye. Satisfied, he continued. 

“In the early days of the conquest of Peru, when gold 
and silver, even precious stones, were to be had for the 
asking—at least for the taking—the Spanish con¬ 
querors became wealthy over night. They established 
a new line of nobility, with castles, retainers, and vast 
land holdings. Every such family, banks being un¬ 
known, possessed a treasure chest.” 

I nodded. Nothing startling in all this. The Doctor 
continued. 

“These chests were heavy and strong, and remark¬ 
able ingenuity was displayed upon some of them. I 
have examined several in different museums. The point 
is that each treasure box was built in such a way that 
it was almost certain death for a thief to open them. 
I saw one in New York that shows the craft of the 
makers. The lid could be raised readily, and seem¬ 
ingly the treasure taken out with ease. But only ap~ 


166 The Fangs of the Serpent 

parently. Lying on the top of the pile of coins, jewels, 
and gold plate, was a crucifix blazing with diamonds, 
emeralds, rubies, I know not what stones. Whoever 
attempted to take that object died. It was attached 
to a mechanism hid in the cover; as the cross was 
moved, a panel slid back in the inside of the lid, a 
concealed spring was released and a heavy steel club 
armed with long sharp teeth dashed downward upon 
the head of the unsuspecting thief. The blow was so 
delivered that it would hurl him back with a crushed 
skull. Then, deliberately, the mechanism would with¬ 
draw the weapon into its cavity, the panel close and 
the lid drop into place.” 

I whistled. Now I began to glimpse what Dr. 
Herron had meant when he told me he had saved my 
life. But he had still more to tell. 

“That was one that I saw; it was somewhat more 
complicated than were the others. All the rest struck 
as the lid was raised, giving the blow every time, unless 
one knew how to shut off the mechanism. And this 
weapon was always in the lid which was very thick and 
heavy. The raising of it generated the power where¬ 
with the blow was delivered. Thus by his own effort 
did the thief store up enough energy to deprive himself, 
all unknowing, of life. The weapons were arranged 
on a plan whereby the strokes they delivered were 
sweeping ones; thus they covered a maximum of area 
with a minimum of reach; anyone within that sweep, 
as they must be to open the chest, would meet death, 
or be so severely injured, that they could not escape.” 

That completed his explanation. To say that I was 
interested, was putting it. mildly. But the Doctor’s 
description of a treasure chest, and of why he jerked 


The Missive With a Corner Gone 167 

me back, did not account for Mr. Oswald’s death. 
True, the chest was of odd make, and according 1 to Dr. 
Herron, about the size and shape of a Spanish treasure¬ 
holding precursor of a modem bank. If it were such 
a man-slayer, how could it have reached out and smote 
J. Marion Oswald and then permitted the rest of us 
who raised the lid to go free? This looked too much 
like a reasoned discrimination to be considered for a 
moment. 

Sounds all right, Doctor, but I guess we can’t 
a PP ] J ^ this chest. You told me that treasure 
chests were heavy and made with thick walls ?” 

“Yes.” 

“Grab hold of one end of this.” He did; we lifted 
it with little effort. “How’s that for heft. Is it 
weighty enough for such a box?” He thought that it 
might be. 

“Well then, look at this.” 

I stooped and with a sangfroid I did not feel, for 
his stories of the animate chests had upset me some¬ 
what, worked the hasps and tore back the lid. The 
groaning and creaking reverberated through the 
museum hall. Nothing happened. 

Dr. Herron had half inclined to halt my opening it; 
but, with an effort, he had drawn back his hand and 
merely stood on the alert to seize me at the slightest 
move on the part of the chest; but none came. In¬ 
stead, the lid remained aloft, sustained by a copper 
brace which moved up one side as the cover rose, and 
held it open about four-fifths raised. If this were 
taken away, the lid would drop. But it was good and 
stout. Had the lid fallen, it would have done little 
damage; it was not heavy enough to injure anyone. 


168 The Fangs of the Serpent 

We pried up some of the copper bands and saw the 
wood beneath. There appeared to be two boards an 
inch thick, fastened together, the grain running in 
opposite directions, doubtless to give strength. 

“See,” I pointed out, “this chest hasn’t sides thick 
enough to conceal a strong steel mechanism, such as 
you told about. It is only a trifle over two inches thick 
at any point.” 

He looked. It was as I said. Dr. Herron was not 
satisfied. He wanted the exact thickness. With three 
sticks and our handkerchiefs, we devised a crude caliper 
and discovered that within minute fractions, the thick¬ 
ness of top and bottom was the same and in no degree 
exceeded that of the sides. 

“Yet I am not satisfied,” and he shook his head. 
“You know that nowadays watches are made almost 
unbelievably thin. On kindred plans, might not a 
mechanic have devised a very thin mechanism to go 
into this chest. Oh, I’ll admit that the crudeness of 
the workmanship belies it; but we must consider every 
possibility.” 

“But how could such a machine in the lid, strike him 
in the wrist,” I asked. It did seem impossible for we 
both tried to take a position in which the wrist would 
be exposed to a blow, and found it unachievable. Dr. 
Herron merely shook his head at the conclusion of our 
experiments. 

“And how could it deliver a blow against him, and 
then not strike us when we open it?” This was a 
puzzling question and I thought it unanswerable, so 
passed it to Dr. Herron. 

“Might not his last act have been to throw out the 
mechanism so that it would no longer act ? Remember, 


The Missive With a Corner Gone 169 

one must know how to shut off these thief-catchers or 
himself have no access to the box.” 

“Which would presuppose that Mr. Oswald knew all 
about it. Then how get hit,” I argued. Of course it 
was nonsense; the box simply had no room for a 
mechanism and could not strike a blow from its lid. 
But if it had, there would have to be a way of con¬ 
trolling those snapping jaws. Dr. Herron insisted that 
we search. Abe and I had been over it thoroughly and 
had discovered nothing remotely resembling a set-key. 
Yet it might be some one of the bosses, or in a slit 
between the bands, Dr. Herron suggested. I bent to 
examine closely the inside of the chest. 

“It couldn’t be within,” Dr. Herron admonished. “If 
it were, how would the owner get at it to set it when 
he wanted to open the chest after having prepared 
it for the reception of thieves?” 

He would be unable, I admitted. We shut the box 
and transferred our attention to the outside. There 
were plenty of openings; in fact, the chest was all 
openings, in the sense that between every band, where 
each one crossed, and beneath each boss, were crevices. 
We explored them all; there was no result. They 
seemed well filled with dust, but nothing else. 

I pulled the chest out from the wall and we looked 
over the back. We each chose a section and worked 
over that. Dr. Herron would take a line following a 
band and examine the mark entirely across the chest. 
Then come back over the same route to be sure that 
nothing was missed. I did the same. We found nothing 
on the rear side, so turned to the front, and then the 
ends. They were also barren. We then turned it 
bottom up. I went at it rather weariedly, but the 


170 The Fangs of the Serpent 

Doctor exercised the same minute care as in the 
beginning. 

Yet it was I that hit on the first odd feature. The 
fifth boss examined proved to be loose. I was taken 
aback. Should I wiggle it? Or pull it out? What 
would happen if I did? Nothing, probably. 

But I decided not to meddle until Dr. Herron had 
examined it. I pointed it out and he left his end and 
came to look at the round stud. He moved it back and 
forth as I had done but did not try to extract it. 
With a machine injecting curari having disposed of 
Mr. Oswald, we were taking no chances. If we plucked 
it forth, would our systems be filled with curari? If 
we put a knife blade beneath it and pried, would the 
result be the same? 

Dr. Herron was not at a loss for long. From the 
recess of some pocket, he drew a string. Looping this, 
he dropped it over the boss and pulled. The string 
broke. He tried again; same result. The string was 
not stout enough. I dropped on the floor, unlaced a 
shoe, drew out the lacing and handed it to him. This 
was rather thick for the crevice beneath the boss, but 
by manoeuvring for a little time, he succeeded in getting 
it about the head. At the first pull the boss came out. 

There was a sharp click—and nothing happened. 

We looked at the rivet-like piece of copper. In 
appearance it had worn until it no longer had a firm 
grip on its socket. But what was it that had caused 
the click? I wanted to poke my finger into the hole 
to see if anything lay within. Dr. Herron stopped me. 

“Nothing like that, with curari about,” he remarked. 
“Let us now see if the lid is set.” 

We turned the chest rightside up and with sticks, 


The Missive With a Corner Gone 171 

string and other implements, succeeded, after half an 
hour of nerve-straining effort, in getting the lid opened. 
Up it came; same old result—nothing happened. 

We shut the lid and dropped upon it to rest. It 
was strenuous work and I was perspiring freely, though 
outside was one of the coldest days of the winter. I 
put on my shoe. 

“Fooled again,” I sputtered, after I had caught some 
of my breath and had cooled off a little. “As usual 
in this case, when we investigate something—nothing 
happens.” 

“Permit me to remind you that we are not yet at the 
end of our examination,” Dr. Herron remarked. “Let 
us renew our search of the bottom. That click is yet 
unexplained.” 

Again we turned the chest bottom up. With sticks 
we prodded the hole without result until Dr. Herron 
chanced to catch one of the pieces of wood against one 
of the sections of copper strip between four bosses 
nearer the center than the one we had taken out. This 
strip moved sideway a bit and exposed a narrow crack. 
Again the click. The boss evidently was connected 
with the movable band. 

Dr. Herron attacked it at once; it moved back under 
his efforts, revealing a section six inches long and four 
inches wide that slipped to one side. Beneath this was 
a cavity, slightly smaller than the covering plate, and 
an inch deep. As the cavity opened, it exposed a 
folded sheet of note paper; beneath this were several 
envelopes, lying one upon another. 

My eyes glistened, and my hopes sprang to the 
clouds. Were we at last, really on the trail of the 
mystery of Mr. Oswald’s death? Were we picking up 


one 


172 The Fangs of the Serpent 

the key? For the paper on the top was minus 
corner! 

Was it the same one? What would it and the other 
letters tell us? Were they put there by Mr. Oswald 
himself, or by another? Had they any connection with 
the materializations or were they directly concerned 
in the taking off of the multimillionaire? 

In a flash, stimulated by the sight of the missive, 
these queries passed before my mind’s eye. But nothing 
disturbed Dr. Herron. He carefully lifted the papers 
from their resting place and, holding them just as they 
lay, scanned the cavity to see what it might reveal. 
One thing was evident at the first glance; the hole 
was not an old one. The wood was white where the 
cut had recently been made. Time had not yet laid 
the searing stroke of its withered hand upon it. 

Besides the letters, it contained not a thing. No 
implement such as might have produced the two wounds 
in J. Marion Oswald’s arm, was to be found. All we 
gleaned was the bundle of correspondence. 

These, too, were not time-stained, time-mellowed, 
epistles. All were new and fresh-looking; observation 
of the postmarks on the envelopes brought out that 
the oldest date was that of only a bit beyond three 
years back. J. Marion Oswald had not had the chest 
for more than a few months. The letters could not 
always have been concealed in this hiding place. For 
the letters were all addressed to Isobel’s father. 

The envelopes were plain, common white ones, such 
as are to be secured in any cheap supply store. Of 
these there were thirteen, and the thirteenth was folded 
without the enclosing container. It was the one on 
top, the sheet without the corner. 


The Missive With a Corner Gone 173 

I could contain myself no longer. Without a word 
to Dr. Herron, I dashed to the stairway and hastened 
down to find Isobel. I wanted to share the discovery 
with her. A short few months ago I would have sat 
there until each letter had been opened, read and 
digested, then rose and rushed—straight to the News 
office. But the coming of Isobel into my life had 
changed all that; she was first, last, the whole scope 
of my life’s thought. 

I found her, explained our discovery, and together 
we hurriedly climbed the stairs. Sitting down with 
Dr. Herron, we went over the letters. A strained look 
came into Isobel’s face as we finished with them; a new 
worry had settled upon her shoulders. 

Then a new thought came to me. Mr. Oswald had 
warned his daughter not to go near the chest, his 
remarks leaving her to infer that it was dangerous. 
And it was—not dangerous for her—but for him. The 
old box held something that he did not want others to 
see, though just why I could not understand. 

Dr. Herron now insisted on finishing the examination 
of the bottom of the chest. With this completed, we 
were able to say that there was no device such as might 
set a catch to restrain such a weapon as he had de¬ 
scribed. My first opinions were sustained. Even Dr. 
Herron admitted that this was no ancient treasure 
chest such as he had at first supposed. 

The Doctor and I had planned to go out to lunch 
and then further examine the museum; but Isobel would 
not hear to it; we were to stay with her; after the 
meal we must call Abe Sullivan. We now had a foot¬ 
hold on the mystery, I was positive; here was some¬ 
thing tangible, a direct threat that pointed to some- 


174 The Fangs of the Serpent 

one who not only planned to kill J. Marion Oswald 
but dared to tell him of it. The weird feature was 
that Mr. Oswald had not said a word to a soul 
concerning it. 

Why? Such action was very unlike him. When the 
man who had invested in one of his promotion enter- 
prises, and had lost his all, forced his way into the 
millionaire’s office with a gun and had tried to kill him, 
Mr. Oswald had not been above leaping through the 
door and rushing down the hall screaming for aid. 

Nor, when he got the letters from the anarchist, 
Sarbotti, had he been at all slow in turning them over 
to the police. Yet here in his old age, threatened by 
one he must have known, he not only had not told 
a living soul, but even had concealed the tangible 
evidence. 

Here, too, we ran across the mysterious “M. E. 
once more. Twice “M. E.” in definite connection with 
Mr. Oswald had stepped forth from the infinite into 
this tragedy. Once, when J. Marion Oswald made use 
of these initials, if he did use them, knowingly, in 
summoning Deborah; and again, in these missives from 
an unknown, did “M. E.” appear. 

We got in touch with Abe and within an hour after 
we had° finished lunch, he was with us. He, too, was 
alive with information. The questioning of Matthias 
Erliesbein had borne fruit. 

When we were settled about a table in the cozy morn¬ 
ing room, Sullivan could contain himself no longer. 
When I asked, “Well, Abe, what luck with Erliesbein?” 
he began and poured out the whole development. 

“Great, great. He’s a regular well of information. 
What he don’t know that is mean about your father, 


The Missive With a Corner Gone 175 

miss,—and I beg your pardon for repeating it, but 
I’m telling what he tells,” Abe nodded apologetically, 
“hasn’t been invented yet. To hear him tell it, Mr. 
Oswald must have had cloven feet, a spiked tail, and 
ate fire and brimstone. He very freely admitted that 
if he had had an opportunity, he would have killed 
your father. But the farther he got from the event 
that roused his rage, the less inclined was he to seek 
actively to injure your father. Had a sudden chance 
presented itself, the story might have been different.” 

Sullivan paused, restlessly. I recognized the symp¬ 
toms ; he badly felt the need of a cigar. I had no right 
or desire to suggest that he smoke; it did not occur 
to Isobel that he might wish to enjoy his weed; so he 
had to get along the best he could, periodically reach¬ 
ing toward the pocket where he carried his cigars, and 
as often remembering and putting down his hand with¬ 
out touching them. 

“It isn’t what he did; it is what he said that put us 
on the track,” Abe went on. “As his hatred for Mr. 
Oswald became widely known, his place became a resort 
for anyone and everyone with a grudge against your 
father. They could hang out here and be sure of a 
sympathetic hearing. The tales he told us! There 
was no bother about making him come across. He was 
proud of the long and bitter rage he had cherished 
against Mr. Oswald, and made no bones about telling 
all he knew and had heard. There is no use rehearsing 
to you all those he recalled who had made threats 
against J. Marion Oswald. The stenographer has all 
the notes and each one will be investigated; but he told 
one instance that struck me as peculiar.” 

Abe thought a moment while choosing his words. 


176 The Fangs of the Serpent 

“Just one week before your father was found dead, 
there was some violent speaking in Erliesbein’s saloon. 
While those who threatened had not known your father 
personally, Miss Oswald, they were in a rage at social 
injustice. So they were breathing threats. As they 
talked, a cripple was seated at one of the tables, listen¬ 
ing and smiling at their fervid remarks. When they 
left, he crawled to his feet and hobbled to the bar, 
his crutches clumping as he dragged his bent and 
twisted form along. ‘They don’t like our friend 
Oswald, do they?’ and he nodded in the direction of 
the men who had just passed out. ‘Well, he has but 
a short time before he will be called to answer,’ and 
stumped his way out. Now Erliesbein claims he had 
never seen the cripple before, nor has seen him since. 
But his threat coming so aptly, has impressed the old 
man; he thinks that this fellow was concerned in your 
father’s death. I agree with him. When we get this 
cripple, for get him we will,—a cripple is easily traced; 
the police note each one as a possible beggar—we’ll 
find out why he knew so much about J. Marion Oswald’s 
death a full week before it occurred.” 

It looked to me more like a lucky guess on the part 
of the cripple, than premeditation. Abe had been so 
sure that when Erliesbein had been made to talk, he 
would have the key; possibly he would contend that 
he did have it in this unknown cripple. 

“Now Abe, if you’ll listen a moment, Dr. Herron 
will tell you what we did and what we found,” and I 
indicated the Doctor, who took the bunch of letters 
from his pocket and spread them upon the table, 
arranging them in a row before him. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


SPECIAL DELIVERY STAMPS. 

T HE narration of how the letters were found I left 
entirely in the hands of Cyrus Herron. It wa£ 
through his efforts that they were discovered, and that, 
through his insight, the very first object investigated, 
had yielded such excellent returns. It was part of the 
strange whirligig we know as life, that Sullivan could 
spend hours and days in the same room, part of the 
time aided by me, and get no results; then Cyrus 
Herron, by a little close work, resurrected the letters. 
Such is the experience of a newswriter; he goes out 
and works for hours and doesn’t get enough for a single 
stick; along comes a cub, goes over the same ground 
and tumbles into a situation that starts the chief rush¬ 
ing the whole staff out to cover it. 

In his narrative Dr. Herron omitted nothing of im¬ 
portance. He had an eye for detail and a knowledge 
of how to tell his story. He began with a discussion 
of treasure chests, which explained his unceremonious 
handling of myself, to which he alluded. He admitted 
the erroneous impression he had received of the chest, 
but as he told of my fancied peril, Isobel turned her 
eyes, filled with reproach, in my direction. 

His description of why we felt it necessary to go 
over the chest, how we did the work, and the results, 
were put before Sullivan with no waste of words. 

177 


178 The Fangs of the Serpent 

“I am certain,” he remarked, in conclusion, “that 
my friend Larry joins with me in attributing their 
discovery to luck. We were not looking for a secret 
hiding place, but for a possible means to shut off a 
murderous device which, quite wrongly, we thought was 
concealed in the chest. It was but chance that led us 
to turn to this one relic, among the thousands, before 
we did any other. The finding of these letters was 
luck, purely and simply luck; luck brought them to 
light.” 

“Give me a little of such luck, then,” commented 
the detective as the doctor concluded. 

“On the opening of the hiding-place and the bring¬ 
ing to light of these letters, Larry did not wait to 
examine the find, but rushed down stairs, returning 
very shortly with Miss Oswald. We looked them over, 
after which she invited us to dinner and here we are. 
For my part, I regret that my time in your city is so 
limited; I greatly fear that all I can do is to take a 
hasty glance through the museum, and hurry away to 
my train.” 

“If you keep on at this rate, we’ll write finis on this 
case tonight, for you’ll have the murderer under lock 
and key, and there’ll be nothing left for me to do.” 
Abe shook his head, half mournfully. Then he leaned 
forward in his chair and extended his hand. 

“But what is in the letters? That’s what counts. 
If you’ll please hand them to me,” and he looked at 
the doctor. 

Cyrus Herron complied. He had arranged the letters 
in chronological order, using the date on each envelope, 
as the enclosed documents bore none. These had been 
mailed at average intervals of three months. The one 


Special Delivery Stamps 


179 


that had been on the top of the pile, the sheet without 
the corner, we inferred was the special delivery sent 
to Mr. Oswald’s home. The absence of the envelope 
was thus explained. In making his complaint, he had 
taken it to the postoffice and had left it there as the 
regulations request. 

The first letter had been received in July a little 
over three years before; since that time, one had never 
failed to arrive approximately three months later. 
The postmarks showed that there was no exact or 
fixed day for their sending. 

While Sullivan was looking them over, before read¬ 
ing, Dr. Herron called our attention to this feature and 
attributed it to the motive of “suspense.” 

“If this first letter struck a chord of, say, appre¬ 
hension, in Mr. Oswald’s bosom, and it seems that 
such rightfully may be inferred from his concealment 
of the messages, then he would always be looking for¬ 
ward to the next one, with the greatest anxiety. Had 
the sender mailed them regularly, Mr. Oswald would 
soon have grasped their periodicity and between times 
would rest in comparative peace. But the fact that 
they were sent so irregularly, that any day, every day, 
might bring one, made each day a day of fear. Yet 
the dates show that they averaged about four a year.” 

Studying the envelopes, Abe made out what we 
already knew. They were of cheap paper, plain, and 
each bore, in addition to the ordinary two-cent stamp, 
a special delivery stamp. There was no return address, 
nor were the letters signed. All were mailed in Chicago. 

The first had been mailed July 8, and the envelope 
bore the triangular dots in one corner; these corre¬ 
sponding with the description of the special mark on 


180 The Fangs of the Serpent 

certain letters he was not to open, given by Mr. 
Oswald’s secretary. The marks were very distinctly 
made, the one in the center being largest. This scheme 
of having a certain one larger than the others was 
not followed in the triangles printed on the other 
envelopes; it could not have been a distinctive 
characteristic. 

All this information was gathered by Sullivan in a 
few seconds, and having exhausted the enclosing case, 
he turned his attention to the enclosures. This first 
message, that of July 8, was simple; too simple; we 
failed to understand it. All the single sheet contained 
was the head of a serpent drawn with wide open mouth 
and with very long fangs. This was in pencil, and not 
very well done. It was plainly evident that lines had 
been erased and redrawn, not once, but several times. 

The second letter had been mailed August 29 and its 
message was still more simple. It bore the single word 
Marian, with a skull in pencil beneath the name. 
Marian was written with a typewriter. 

The letters continued to come with great irregularity, 
but averaging the three months apart as Dr. Herron 
had pointed out; and each one added a bit more than 
the last. On the fourth received was a headstone bear¬ 
ing the initials, “M. E.” After that, nearly every one 
had some reference to some person whose first and last 
names began with those letters. It was this same fourth 
letter that contained the first open threat. “Death to 
devils,” was written with a machine at the bottom of 
the sheet. 

After the first picture of a snake’s head, there was 
no reference to a reptile until the sixth letter. Here 
again was drawn a serpent’s forepart, with fangs pro- 


Special Delivery Stamps 181 

truding, and the missive asked, “Remember the 
Serpent’s Fangs?” 

From then on, gradually the letters became more 
explicit in their threatening tone. It was the last one 
that almost told him the exact day he was to die. 
Almost—but not quite. It was short. 

“M. E.—Remember—M. E. Down through the 
Fangs of the Serpent; down through you. Think you 
that you have escaped? Long have you gloated, but 
the end draws nigh. Count the days as you made 
M. E. count them. Count them for the end. And as 
you count you shall walk once again through the Jaws 
of the Se-.” The rest was missing. 

Though the corner I had picked up was now in the 
possession of the district attorney, none of us had any 
doubt that when placed against the comer of this sheet, 
it would fit perfectly. So the word was not “repent,” 
as we had assumed. 

“Bombastic,” commented Abe as he finished with 
this. “Not very different from the warning Deborah 

gave. Now I wonder-” and he paused in thought. 

Was he thinking, as was I, that if these messages were 
written by the one who killed J. Marion Oswald, that 
what Deborah said was of no moment; they were not 
composed by the same person. Or had he started to 
make a remark that would have hurt Isobel? 

Poor Isobel! Hers was a difficult position. She 
looked tired and sick. And who would not? Yet not 
for a moment had she lost faith in her father. 

“I am sure that this is the writing of some crack- 
brained individual,” she addressed both Abe and 
Herron, “who thinks that in some deal with father, he, 
himself, or the mysterious M. E. was wronged. Father 



182 The Fangs of the Serpent 

had to stand so much of undeserved censure. It is one 
of the penalties the great pay for their success, lhe 
little, the jealous, the weak, making up the great mass 
of the unsuccessful, grow sullen with hate; and some¬ 
one among them, less well balanced but more revenge¬ 
ful, is not above committing murder.” 

“That may be very true,” commented Dr. Herron. 
None of us could be free in making comments on the 
letters, or the motives which might have induced their 
writing, in the presence of Isobel. Still more we re¬ 
frained from discussing acts of J. Marion Oswald which 
would induce him to hide such letters as these and 
calmly submit to a decree of death; for that was what 
we surmised the letters were intended to convey. Dr. 
Herron was continuing. 

“The general character of these letters is euphuistic. 
They lack smoothness, cohesion. About the only ad¬ 
mirable trait revealed is determination; and in tins 
case it is used to an ulterior purpose.” 

“Yes,” assented Abe as he fingered the letters before 
him, “reads like a Laura Jean Libbey romance. Inno¬ 
cent girl, rich villain, noble-hearted lover, and all the 
rest.” 

“Oh, but you don’t think that M. E. was a woman, 
do you?” Isobel was quick to take up his slip. She 
regarded him fixedly. She saw it in his face. Abe was 
cornered; no use entering a denial; he had to admit 
it. Besides, there was the second letter. 

Abe picked this up, from those before him, reached 
over and handed it to her. 

“What do you make of the ‘Marian’ there, Miss 

Oswald?” he asked. 


183 


Special Delivery Stamps 

She stammered. Yet not in confusion. Her eyes 
voiced the blow she had received. 

“ ‘Marian’? Why, I thought it was father; I read 
‘Marion/ ” 

But all this is beside the question,” Abe returned, 
as she finished speaking. In the kindness of his heart 
he wished to spare her further revelations and he 
brought the conversation back to a safer subject. “It 
doesn’t help us find the writer of the letters. But when 
we do, I’m thinking then we’ll find your father’s mur¬ 
derer. Though we’ve got another lead, too, through 
the cripple Erliesbein told us about.” 

“How will you set about finding the writer,” Dr. 
Herron inquired. “This is entirely outside my field 
and I would be lost working out such a matter.” 

Abe took the letters before him and spread them out. 
Isow he was going to show how a detective worked — 1 
according to popular conception; how they did not 
work, as I knew from experience. He bluffed. 

“Paper h’m envelopes—common, common—noth¬ 
ing to go by except their very commonness. Pencil 
used;—for drawing only—too cautious—nothing there. 
Messages typed both as to address and the letters. 
H’m—Densmore?—Yes, pretty sure. Yep—Densmore. 
Helps some; guilty party owns or has access to a 
Densmore. Nothing in the messages to give him away. 
No address, no locality named. Only hint M. E. and 
name Marian. Probably Marian E. Who was she? 
—Can we find out? Must run through my ‘M. E.’ list 
again and check for special work with those of first 

name Marian. Rest of stuff queer. Rattlesnake_ 

don t know what it means. Wonder if any connection 


184 


The Fangs of the Serpent 

with group in the museum. Type—h’m let’s see 
wish I had a microscope.” 

Dr. Herron raised his eyebrows in surprise. I could 
follow his thoughts as though he spoke them. “A 
detective without a microscope! He cannot be very 
efficient; they always carry them.” 

It was just a remark on Abe’s part, but Isobel took 
it as a hint. She rang for Tasker and when he ap¬ 
peared instructed him to fetch one from the library. 
Tasker returned almost immediately and handed the 
instrument, at her directions, to the detective. Abe 
took it and fingered it a moment as though studying 
out a problem; and he was; he was figuring out how to 
use the miserable thing. Finally he adjusted it, and 
studied the letter for some time in silence. Then, 
having thought up something to say, based on such 
detective stories as he had read, he went on. 

“Not much here; too little to go on. The paper is 
so porous the ink spreads. Can’t make out all the 
defective letters. Looks as though the ‘e’ were worn 
badly at the bottom; and the ‘a’ is broken just below 
the cross line. Can’t be sure though. Take too long 
to find anyone by looking up every Densmore owner; 
he’d get wind of it, too, and skip. Just do for refer¬ 
ence when he’s found. What else have we got?” Just 
as if he really used such a method, he went over the 
letters and envelopes again. 

“H’m—all the same size.” Referring to the 
envelopes. “Couple of finger marks. Most likely those 
of postoffice clerk. Might be those of any of us, just 
as well. No value anyway; too much smeared. All 
have ordinary stamp, also a special. That may help. 
Most folks, under the department’s permission, use 


Special. Delivery Stamps 


185 


ordinary two-centers, putting on five additional. Not 
many special delivery stamps sold any more. Let’s 
see—where were they mailed? H’m—first one—main 
office. That’s bad. Next one at Station P—and the 
next—and the next,—yes, and the next. Here’s a 
change—the sixth was mailed at Station V;—yes, and 
the rest were mailed from there, too. Our man must 
have moved about two years ago. Got into a neighbor¬ 
hood and has used the nearest postoffice ever since. 
Careless of him—careless. If he did,” he added as a 
second thought. 

“Maybe it’s a blind. Looks as though he came from 
a small burg and thought a big city like Chicago would 
cover him. Seems to have done well, except that one 
thing. Suppose I see what we can do with that,” and 
he fell to gathering up the letters. “I’ll have to take 
possession of these and turn them over to the D. A.’s 
office. Do you want to come along?” and he looked at 
Cyrus Herron and me. 

No, we did not. Dr. Herron desired to revisit the 
museum and I was to accompany him. Abe left. 

“Oh, Mr. Bowen,” Isobel remarked after he had gone 
and we had risen, Dr. Herron and I, preparatory to 
ascending to the fourth floor. “Can’t you remain with 
me while Dr. Herron goes up under Tasker’s care? I 
do not know what to think. I want to talk over these 
things that have come up. Please stay.” 

Stay?—Of course I would. Dr. Herron said he 
could get along very nicely without my aid, and the 
butler took him away. It was rather late when he 
finished, but he had found nothing more that was sus¬ 
picious. He too agreed with Abe and me that the 
weapon was not in the room. 


186 The Fangs of the Serpent 

We returned to my rooms, went out and got a meal, 
after which I left him to go back and get his bag. He 
was going out on the Soo’s 11:30 p.m. train. I had to 
prepare for the News a report on the day’s discoveries; 
so I hastened down to the office. 

Next afternoon I went around to Abe’s office to find 
out what he had accomplished. This was very little, 
he told me. He arrived at Station V just before clos¬ 
ing time. Sullivan knew the clerk at the window and 
after greeting him, asked if he sold many special 
delivery stamps. 

“Not any more,” he was told. “Since ordinary 
stamps answer the same purpose, nearly everyone makes 
use of them; they are much more convenient.” 

“Then, perhaps you have regular customers who buy 
them. Do you remember any who have this habit,” 
Abe asked. 

“Possibly? Why do you want to know?” 

Abe explained at some length, though not fully; 
merely enough so that the young man understood that 
the apprehension of a criminal depended upon the 
knowledge. 

“I am sorry,” the clerk had replied; “I may have 
the information you are seeking, but our rules are strict. 
I cannot tell you unless the Postmaster instructs me to 
do so.” 

Sullivan didn’t argue. The clerk was obeying the 
regulations. But it was exasperating. It meant a day 
lost. He must journey to the main office, see the post¬ 
master, get his permission, then come back and start 
all over again. It was now so late in the day that 
there was small chance of catching the big man in; 
that meant, go in the morning. Then when he had 


Special Delivery Stamps 


187 


the consent of the chief official, he must return to 
Station V; the same clerk would not then be on duty. 
The question would have to be put to another; he might, 
or might not, know; but anyway, Abe knew he must 
see both. 

There was no other course to take, so Abe took it. 
While he assumed that the writer lived within the dis¬ 
trict closely contiguous to the Station, this was by 
no means certain. Even if it were, Abe could not 
subject everyone in that region to the third degree. 

There were but three things to go on, each one de¬ 
cidedly weak; even this, the attempt to locate the man 
who purchased the special delivery stamps, being a 
“long shot.” Of course there was a possible fourth: 
Deborah. But was she material or spiritual? We had 
not as yet settled this. Which left but three things 
we actually knew. 

The second concerned an “M. E.” We might have 
taken the whole city, studying every name in the 
Directory with those initials, and have called upon 
them all; or if one had a first name “Marian” have 
gone deeply into her history. The first chance, or the 
last, as to how it was viewed, was in finding a cripple 
who corresponded with the description given by 
Matthias Erliesbein. But to look up all the crippled 
in Chicago and pick out a certain one, was a task 
beyond Sullivan’s powers. 

“We’ve dallied along on this case for weeks,” he com¬ 
plained, after he had finished his tale of his troubles 
over the special delivery stamps, “without getting any 
new light except that shed through the spirit Deborah. 
That is pretty fluky. Now we really have our hands 


188 The Fangs of the Serpent 

on something that will lead us to the information we 
need,” he concluded more cheerfully. 

Abe’s big idea was to get somebody and make him 
talk. He had brought in Matthias Erliesbein, but as 
Abe growled, he had talked too much, given too much 
information. Still Sullivan could not break the habits 
and the training of years; his methods demanded some¬ 
one from whom to drag the facts required. I had a 
hunch that no one was going to talk in this case; that 
if we found out how J. Marion Oswald died, we’d dis¬ 
cover it ourselves. As well-planned and well-executed 
a slaying as this, meant that no weakminded individual 
was going to come forward and tell all about it. 

Abe now had the permission of the Postmaster and 
the latter’s instructions to the clerk; I went with him 
back to Station V. This time there was an older man 
on duty at the window. After the matter was ex¬ 
plained to him, he did not even wait for the word from 
his superior. He, too, knew Abe and was willing to 
take a chance. But of course he did not need to, for 
Sullivan gave the authority of the Postmaster for his 
request. 

About special delivery stamps: Yes, there were a 
few sales. The D. and S. Company came in every 
month and purchased a large number, but he didn’t 
suppose we’d want that. There were few regulars. 
Old James Oglethorpe always insisted on specials. 
Miss Tabitha Dobson was a second. There were many 
he didn’t know. There was a cripple who came in 
occasionally and bought a single special. But he sup¬ 
posed he was out of the question. There was a girl- 

Abe interrupted. This cripple;—how was he in¬ 
jured; what was his trouble? 



Special Delivery Stamps 


189 


“Oh,” the clerk replied, “he looks as though he is 
suffering from rheumatism; he is all drawn over. He 
walks with crutches. His back is a great bow.” 

Abe and I recalled Erliesbein’s description. Was 
this the same man? The clerk continued naming others, 
but I paid little attention. When he had finished, Abe 
thanked him and we withdrew. Abe was not keen for 
waiting until the other clerk came in. He felt he had 
something before him now, and remarked that he had 
better act on what he had, and locate the man with the 
bent back. 

“That’s our man,” Sullivan told me as we left the 
lobby. “I feel it in my bones. There can hardly be 
two men in Chicago as badly bent as the one Erliesbein 
saw; yet here we have such a one. I’m going out to 
spread the drag net. Someone on the force must have 
seen him, and will recognize his description. But if 
not, we’ll comb the district, gradually broadening the 
circle. We’ll find him if he is still here; and if he has 
left, we’ll uncover his trail. Leave it to me. When 
we find our man, I’ll send for you.” 

Late that evening I went down to report progress 
to Isobel. It took longer than I anticipated and it 
was near midnight when I left. As I hopped out of the 
taxi at the office, I noticed a figure pass in front of me, 
going west. I paid little attention for just then, there 
amid the snow-clad streets of Chicago, I suddenly re¬ 
called the woodland as it looked in autumn up on my 
aunt’s farm in Wisconsin. It was wonderful. Nothing 
had met my eye to rouse such memories, but the mental 
picture was vivid; the colors, the sounds, the scents, 
were before me just as though I stood again in the 
shady, open spot among the trees. 


190 The Fangs of the Serpent 

The memory was fading from my mind, growing less 
clear, as I sped up the steps. When, just as I was 
entering, there flashed into my mind the fact that I 
had received the same impression on the day of the 
funeral of Mr. Oswald. And what had brought it 
about ? A subtle perfume. 

With this odor I had associated a woman in a heavy 
black veil. Then memory, spurred to action, recalled 
the faint whiff of perfume that had reached me as the 
figure passed; and now;—I saw it all—even when 
Deborah had appeared, I had sensed it. 

I turned and dashed down the steps, but there was 
no one in sight, in either direction. The figure had been 
moving west. I hurried to the next corner in that 
direction and looked up and down the cross street. 
Other than a few men moving in the distance, there was 
no one in sight; the garbed figure for whom I searched 
had disappeared. As there were a hundred places into 
which she might have gone, I recognized the futility of 
further pursuit. Figuratively, I kicked myself for a 
chump. Why had I not grasped the connection be¬ 
tween the perfume and the figure at once? But, after 
all, had that odor any connection with Mr. Oswald 
and his passing to the shadow world? Was I getting 
into such a condition that everything and everyone 
suggested the one who had administered the curari? 

I went to bed wondering if it were not all a part of 
a waking dream, a hallucination induced by thinking 
and studying over and over the possibilities connected 
with this case. Would I find that a perfume had been 
a factor in the death of J. Marion Oswald, or would 
Abe bring in a cripple as the murderer? 

The task of running to earth the purchaser of the 


Special Delivery Stamps 


191 


special delivery stamps was fraught with no great 
difficulties. It was shortly after five that evening, but 
a few hours after I had completed my season of rest, 
that I was called to the phone. As I took down the 
receiver, and sang out “Hello,” Abe’s voice rolled over 
the wires. 

“Come down at once; we’ve got the man.” 


CHAPTER XIV. 


THE WRITER OF THE LETTERS. 

S O Abe had the man. This might mean that he 
already was in “durance vile,” as common folk 
prefer to think of being “jugged,” or in the “hoos- 
gow”; or it might mean that his location was known 
and that he was under surveillance. In either alterna¬ 
tive, I could see the end of the case, if the man indeed 
were the murderer. And it looked as though he were. 
He must have a connection with the letters, and they 
threatened death. 

Headlines such as, “Sleuth Sullivan Solves Secret”; 
«J. Marion Oswald’s Slayer Seized”; these and a score 
of others passed before my mental vision. “News Man 
Finds the Key,” seemed about the way the chief would 
run it. 

There was no dallying on my part, even though I did 
think a thought or two; if there was anything about 
the mystery of Mr. Oswald’s death that I missed, there 
would be news for me at the chief’s desk. 

Over the wire Sullivan had told me to come to the 
police quarters nearest Postal Station V. I arrived 
in record time, only to find that there was no need for 
such haste. While the cripple was surrounded in his 
rooms, he was not taken as yet. We were waiting for 
a representative from the criminal branch of the dis¬ 
trict attorney’s office, who was to be present at the 
192 


193 


The Writer of the Letters 

raid. While sitting in the station until the lawyer 
appeared, Abe gave me what information had been 
dug up. 

“We found him easy enough. He hasn’t made any 
secret of his existence. The patrolman knows him well, 
says he is so badly crippled with rheumatism that he 
doesn’t see how the man walks at all; he just manages 
to stump about on his crutches. Agreeable, kindly 
fellow, apparently; he always has a joke or a smile 
for the man on the beat. Probably a blind, though.” 

As he talked, Abe looked me over, as though search¬ 
ing for a gun, but none showed. 

“Aren’t you armed?” he asked in some surprise. 
“You sure ought to have a ‘gat.’ A man that uses 
curari can’t be allowed any leeway. This may be a life 
and death tussle for some of us. Just suppose that, 
as we burst in, he lets drive a handful of spikes with 
their tips dipped in that dope! Nice thing for a man 
with a family to think of, isn’t it!” 

It was not. Nor was Sullivan thinking of it; it was 
just his way of warning me of the danger we ran. No 
matter what they do or don’t do in other matters, 
Chicago policemen do not hang back in desperate situa¬ 
tions. “Don’t think; act,” is their motto. A good one 
too, for the fellow they are after is just as scared as 
they would be if they stopped to think. But then, 
they are not supposed to cogitate; that is the news- 
writer’s business. I was the one that got the shivers. 
Just then the representative from the criminal depart¬ 
ment came in; we started. 

The cripple had a suite of rooms on the second floor 
of the “Maid of Orleans” flat. He could not be in the 
penurious class; such unfortunates never even got in- 


194 The Fangs of the Serpent 

side those doors. We found the place well guarded. 
Where the suspected murderer of J. Marion Oswald 
was involved, the police were taking no chances; he 
should not get away if they could help it. 

We entered together: Abe, Smyte, the district 
attorney’s man, I and three common cops. They were 
along so that if the cripple got nasty, they would get 
the first dose of curari. What d’ye suppose our mag¬ 
nificent municipality is paying them their princely 
salaries for? 

There was no need nor attempt at concealment as 
yet. The more openly the matter was conducted, the 
better chance we had to get the man. It was nearly 
seven o’clock but the hall was brilliantly lighted. Abe 
and one of the patrolmen went ahead up the stairs and 
past the door of the cripple’s room, which was known 
to the officers; the two other men came next; theirs was 
the duty of hurling themselves against the door, and 
rushing the place. Knock? Ask permission to enter? 
Not with a curari murderer, said Abe. 

I and Smyte were behind. We were yet on the stairs, 
but had a good view of the door to the man’s room,— 
this was in the right wall, and the second beyond the 
landing—when the two policemen arrived opposite the 
cripple’s doorway. Walking close to the wall, they 
turned and as one dashed at the entrance. One reached 
forth, grasped and turned the knob; the door flew open; 
it was not even locked. Nearly falling, but alert, they 
sprawled into the room. Their clubs were in their 
hands, but there was no occasion to use them. 

The room was brightly lighted, but held no human 
occupants. Abe and the other man had rushed back 
and Smyte and I hurried up. The two police who had 


The Writer of the Letters 195 

entered paused when they saw that no one was in the 
chamber; the rest of us followed them into the room, 
then stood at attention, scanning every corner. In 
the silence came a tap, tap, tap, tap, from some ad¬ 
joining space. Even as we listened, a form appeared 
at the doorway in the far wall. I had one glance ere 
the police acted. That was enough. 

A cripple? Why the man was nearly helpless, so 
great was his deformity. Two thin legs, bent and 
twisted, supported a body so bowed that the man never 
looked up. His back was drawn over into a huge bow, 
his chin touching his chest. Only by his crutches could 
he hold himself erect. 

The officers took not a chance. As he appeared, like 
a well-trained football squad, they hurled themselves 
upon him. The crutches went flying and in a minute 
they rose, puffing slightly, and left the manacled form 
on the floor. His hands were ironed in front of him; 
so bent was he that they could not get them behind 
his back; his legs were securely fastened. 

“What is the meaning of this?” came in faint, though 
gentle tones from the body on the floor. 

“Keep still,” growled Abe, then to the two officers, 
“Pick him up and put him on the couch.” They did so. 

The search of the premises which ensued was one of 
the most thorough I have ever seen, and I have been 
in on several. Smyte and I stayed in the first room 
with the prisoner; he never said a word during the 
entire examination. The three officers under Abe’s 
direction, poked into every drawer, crevice, every 
utensil; nothing escaped them. And all they found— 
a Densmore typewriter. As they finished, they returned 
to the room where we were. Abe brought the machine. 


196 


The Fangs of the Serpent 

“Pm going to see if this is the one that wrote the 
notes,” he remarked grimly, as he set it on a table and 
drew up a chair. We watch him insert a sheet of 
paper; click, click, click,—in silence he picked off the 
letters. He had brought with him one of the letters 
found in the chest, and was using this as a copy. He 
finished, drew out the sheet he had written, and laid it 
beside the other; as he looked them over, a look of dis¬ 
appointment overspread his features, and he shook his 
head. 

“Not like it at all. Can see that at a glance. As 
Abe made the remark, a chuckle came from the couch. 

“Foiled you, didn’t I? I had the type changed 
several weeks ago.” 

With a start we turned and looked at the cripple. 
The man went on. 

“If you’ll let me sit up, perhaps we can get this mess 
straightened out.” 

Smyte looked at Abe and nodded. Sullivan, with 
one of the officers, placed the poor wreck in such a posi¬ 
tion that, by peering up under his eyebrows, he could 
look at us. But to do this, he had to lie flat on his 
back. This pitiable creature the murderer of Mr. 
Oswald? I could not believe it. 

Sullivan removed none of the irons, nor did the man 
ask it. Yet he smiled bravely, cheerfully, almost with 
satisfaction, I thought. 

“No need for me to pretend I do not know why you 
are here,” he remarked without any preface. “I do. I 
followed the case in the papers and knew that you had 
found the letters. But I scarcely expected you so soon. 
Yes, I know why you have come. You think I had a 
hand in the death of that hell-hound, Oswald. I didn t, 


The Writer of the Letters 197 

but by God, I wish I had.” There was rage and bitter¬ 
ness in his tones. 

“See here, old man, you are under arrest for that 
very murder. Better tell us who helped you in it.” 

There was no thought in Abe’s mind of warning him 
that what he said would be used against him. Get him 
to talk was Abe’s idea; and he well knew that the best 
time was just after an arrest, when the victim is 
shocked and disturbed, and has had no time to think. 
This case ranked so high in importance that the dis¬ 
trict attorney wished first hand information of what 
was done and said; hence the presence of Smyte. 

“Who wrote those letters?” The question was 
sudden. 

The cripple did not pretend to misunderstand Abe. 

“I did,” he admitted with pride. Then with a laugh 
that had a world of bitterness, he added: “And I hope 
they made that cur pass many an anxious hour. Then 
he slipped away from me at last, damn him,” and he 
added a string of curses. “Say, if I believed in a literal 
hell, I’d do everything under the sun to go there so as 
to see that devil suffer, as he made others suffer.” 

Mr. Oswald must have had a great faculty for mak¬ 
ing the most deadly of enemies; Erliesbein cursing him 
all his life; this man, bitter at even the thought of him, 
now that he was gone; and heaven knows how many 
hundreds of others scattered about the world. 

“What did you kill him for?” demanded Abe. 

“I didn’t,” he replied again. 

“Where did you get the curari?” Abe came back at 
him. 

“Never had any; don’t know where to get it.” 


198 The Fangs of the Serpent 

“Where did you get the serpent poison?” Abe gave 
him not a moment to think. 

“The serpent poison?”—in surprise; then—“Oh, I 
see,” and he chuckled. “Say,” he went on, “ease me 
up a bit and I’ll tell you the whole story.” 

This was what Sullivan and Smyte were fishing for, 
but their faces showed no signs of their elation; usually 
it took hours of questioning to bring it to pass, but 
here—it had taken but a few minutes. Doubts began 
to loom up in my mind; it had come too easily. 

Abe sent one of the officers into another room after 
pillows and with them propped up the poor creature 
into as comfortable a position as he could find. Smyte, 
who was also a stenographer, prepared to take down 
the cripple’s story. 

“My name is Lionel Marsh.” This was the name he 
had been using, so it might be his real one, or it might 
be a title adopted years ago. That we would find out 
later. 

“I am fifty-eight years of age. I was not always in 
this terrible shape, but rheumatism, contracted while 
in prison walls where that beast had placed me, got me, 
and gradually it crept farther and farther into my 
muscles, finally pulling me into this mockery of the 
human form. When I was a young man I fell in love 
with one of the finest women God ever made. Oh, yes,” 
and he nodded at Abe, “there is a woman in the story.” 

“We lived in the village of Two Rocks, in the central 
part of Wisconsin. We were simple village folk, plod¬ 
ding along with little. Marian Ellarson taught the 
school in a country district four miles from Two 
Rocks. I clerked in the village hardware store. You 
aren’t interested in our lovemaking; so I simply will 


The Writer of the Letters 


199 


say that for two years we had been engaged, striving 
with might and main to get enough ahead so we could 
marry. But we couldn’t do it. I got only nine dollars 
a week, and old Jerome, the owner of the store, really 
could not afford to pay more; some weeks he had not 
that much for himself. With eight months’ school at 
twenty a month, poor Marian could not save a cent, 
either. Things looked hopeless. 

“Then came the branch factory of the Tangent 
Packing Company, locating in Two Rocks. Here was 
our chance. I got a job at once and when her school 
term was ended, Marian, too, entered the employ of the 
company, finding a berth in the office. No use of my 
following us through the next few months. After that, 
something happened. Of course I didn’t get all the 
facts as I tell them to you now, in the precise order in 
which they happened, but you’ll grasp my story better 
if I tell them as I understand their sequence. 

“It wasn’t very long before the company, at their 
main office, discovered that the Two Rocks branch 
wasn’t making as much money as it should. Yet the 
volume of business was larger than had been expected. 
They let it run along for five months, then decided to 
investigate the matter. 

“That is where that heartless beast, old Oswald, 
came in. Only he wasn’t so old then. Of course I 
didn’t know it, but he was the principal stockholder of 
the American Packing Company. He decided to take 
a little vacation and look into the matter himself. He 
didn’t come down with flying colors and trot around 
as J. Marion Oswald. Not he; he was known only to 
one man, the manager of the plant; to the rest he was 


200 The Fangs of the Serpent 

Howard Davis, and before long it leaked out that he 
was a detective. 

“Oh, we were curious. A detective in our small town 
was an innovation. Everyone wanted to see him. He 
seemed to make little progress and no wonder, for the 
real thief was the manager himself, though I didn’t find 
this out until long after. Davis, as we knew him, had a 
place in the office; ostensibly he was a new clerk; a big 
blind that, when we all thought we knew him as a 
detective. 

“In his new place he was thrown much in contact 
with Marian. Now I wasn’t jealous. I loved her and 
she loved me. The little, gentlemanly attentions he 
paid her, and of which she told me at times, didn’t 
worry me. 

“That was just the way of the beast. He acted in 
an open, apparently honorable manner, posing all the 
while as a single man, though for fifteen years he had 
been married. Sometimes he walked home with her; on 
several occasions he asked her to accompany him to 
various places, but had been quietly refused. But he 
was persistent. I could not always be at Marian’s side, 
and he was such a gentleman that once or twice she did 
go with him; once for a buggy-ride one Sunday after¬ 
noon. And his behavior was perfect, outwardly, damn 
him; but underneath he had already plotted his devil¬ 
try. He had learned that I was Marian Ellarson’s 
accepted lover. 

“Why drag it out ? He stayed and stayed; couldn’t 
seem to find the hole through which the money had 
escaped. This gave the manager time to save his own 
hide. The next thing I knew I was arrested and Davis 
had such a clean case against me that they were going 


The Writer of the Letters 201 

to give me fifteen years; fifteen years—God!—for 
something I never did.” 

For some moments Marsh cursed Oswald in a fluent 
and picturesque vocabulary. But he quieted down, 
shortly, and resumed. 

“See his fine Italian hand now! Marian went to him 
and interceded for me; and he came to me and told me 
he would do everything he could to lighten my sentence, 
if I would plead guilty. He knew I wasn’t bad at heart 
and so on. Bad at heart?—Hell, I was as innocent of 
the crime as a babe unborn. I told him so and that I 
would not plead guilty to something I had not done. 
And I told Marian the same thing. But they had doc¬ 
tored the books so that I could not escape. Even my 
own mother thought I was guilty, that I was doing it 
to get money to marry Marian. 

“I got five years and the judge, in imposing sentence, 
remarked that it Ivas only on the intercession of the 
detective, Mr. Davis, that I was let off so lightly; he, 
the judge, was minded to make it what I deserved, fif¬ 
teen years. I was taken away. But Davis, as he was 
known to everyone, didn’t leave at once. He condoled 
with Marian, walked home with her more often, and 
constituted himself her special protector. 

“Poor girl, her cup was full. I had been sent away 
under conditions that, she could not but believe, 
pointed to my guilt. The people of the village, with 
nothing else to do, began to speculate as to whether 
Marian might not have had a hand in it, too. 

“Her friends began to leave her, all except Davis; 
he was ever present. Then, in a month, he said his 
detective duties called him elsewhere, and he left, but 
returned for a visit every two weeks; and Marian was 


202 The Fangs of the Serpent 

the one he came to see. He began to make desperate 
love to her and she, poor soul, with almost no one in the 
village to go to, everyone thinking ill of her, was glad 
of some one to talk to, even at the price of lovemaking. 
Besides, remember that he always had been the perfect 
gentleman; and she had lost me, and had seen her 
friends slipping away from her. 

“Before long she got to going to meet him in neigh¬ 
boring towns. All perfectly innocent: Why have the 
people of Two Rocks know all about who her visitors 
were, and what they did? Yet he came to Two Rocks, 
too, whenever he could, he told her. At last, nearly a 
year after I had gone to prison, she gave herself to 
him. His story was that, while he appeared a single 
man, he had an insane wife in the hopeless ward of the 
state hospital. Fve since found that actually there was 
a woman there by the name of Davis to whom he used 
to send money and visit. I believe that Marian visited 
the place and saw for herself. Either he had hired 
some one to be Mrs. Davis, or there was such a person, 
and through bribes, he slipped in as her real husband. 

“So Marian consented to go with him and to marry 
him when his wife died. I know that sounds bad, but 
don’t blame the poor girl. She was human, loving and 
lovable, and craved companionship, care, attention; 
these he gave her. Maybe the old hellion should have 
his dues; perhaps he did love Marian a little. Any¬ 
way, he fixed up a little place for her away off in one 
corner of the state and kept visiting her for more than 
five years. As Detective Davis, his long absences were 
easily explained. And to Marian he was always Davis. 
She died thinking that was his name. 

“I got out in a little over three years. I rushed back 


203 


The Writer of the Letters 

to Two Rocks, hoping to find a trace of Marian, for I 
knew that she had left the village. No one had any 
knowledge of her whereabouts. Even at this time I 
had no suspicion that Davis had fixed up the evidence 
to convict me. No, I never did find either Davis or 
Marian. But Oswald I did. 

“But after much inquiry, I did hear of her marriage, 
as I supposed, to Davis. And I, supposing him to be 
decent—hadn’t he proved it, the scoundrel, by his ask¬ 
ing the judge to let me off easy?—conceded to him the 
full right to win her, as he had. Who was I, a jailbird, 
to expect a normal young woman to wait for me? 
Though I longed to see her again, and though I was 
constantly on the lookout, hoping by chance to meet 
her, I ceased active endeavors to locate them. 

“Before I did so, I had inquired at the plant for 
Davis. Though this was still running, no one knew 
where he was. The manager had left a year previous 
to my return. Him I found. 

“I know that what I now have to tell sound fishy, 
but you can investigate for yourselves, if you doubt it. 
After all, he had a lot on his conscience and the sudden 
sight of me in his weak state brought on the hemor¬ 
rhage from which he died. He was in the last stages 
of tuberculosis and as I walked in on him he raised up 
with a shriek and pushed violently away with his hands, 
crying, ‘No, no, I didn’t do it. He fixed the evidence 
and I had to keep still. He’d have sent me up if I inter¬ 
fered. No, no, I didn’t do it. Keep away. He did it, 
he did it !* His fear and emotion were terrible to wit¬ 
ness and his agitation brought on a rush of blood from 
the mouth. He collapsed and died before I could sum¬ 
mon assistance. I was dumbfounded. I had taken in 


204 The Fangs of the Serpent 

only a part of what he said. When he shouted ‘He’, I 
understood Davis, though doubtless he meant Oswald, 
as he knew the two were the same person. Had I had 
an opportunity to question him, I would have found 
this out, but I arrived too late. 

“No, as I said, I never did find Marian. But shortly 
before she died, she came to me; she had kept track of 
me, and later she told me all the story as I have given 
it to you, beyond what I know of myself. 

“He kept coming to see her, as I said, for almost 
five years. Then, when she needed him most, six 
months before her child was born, he deserted her. The 
devilish, unfeeling brute, to think he slipped out of my 
hands 1 

“The child came with her all alone in the house save 
for a neighbor. Never a cent did he send her. As soon 
as she was able, yes, even sooner, she was forced to find 
work. What can a woman with a baby get to do ? She 
had to place the girl, for it was a female child, with a 
poor family. Because of the nature of her employ¬ 
ment, she could visit them but seldom; they finally 
moved away and she lost all trace of them. 

“The years passed: I became prosperous, but I never 
married. Marian became old and bent with toil, 
wrinkled with premature age; but she never forgot me. 
In her last days she drifted down to Two Rocks and 
to me. No one knew her for the Marian Ellarson of 
old. Poor sweetheart, her time had come; she passed 
away in my arms, but she believed till the end that 
Davis, who was really Oswald, had met with an 
accident. 

“How did I find him? Simplest thing in the world. 
The earth is not big enough to hide such a creature 


The Writer of the Letters 205 

from the man who hates as I hated. I was at the stock 
show here in Chicago four years ago, and I saw J. 
Marion Oswald. Though the years had changed him 
mightily, I knew him. But there was much to learn. 
One does not lightly accuse a multimillionaire of the 
crimes with which I would charge this devil. No, I 
had much work to do. It was not much of a task to 
establish the connection of the Tangent Packing Com¬ 
pany with him. By the use of a photograph, somewhat 
altered, I proved that Oswald was Davis, and as the 
latter had paid periodical visits to a small town in 
southwestern Wisconsin. Now came my time to make 
him suffer. 

“But the rheumatism I had contracted while con¬ 
fined in the damp cells of the prison, had been growing 
worse year by year, and now seized me in a terrible 
grip from which I emerged as you see me. But I made 
up my mind that it should not hinder me; and it 
did not. 

“I had my plans all made. That was why I had the 
letters on the typewriter changed. After I had done 
it, I was not minded to pay the penalty. Within a very 
short time, had he lived, J. Marion Oswald would have 
gone to a most horrible death. I can tell you all this 
because, damn him, he escaped me. 

“Still, I have one consolation. How he must have 
dreaded every mail. I planned the letters so that each 
one hinted a little more of his crimes; and so that every 
day he would look for a message. But it would not 
come. Long, long he’d wait and think, ‘Something has 
happened; not again will I get one of the letters.’ 
Then, down one would drop. Oh, I wrung his soul. 
Didn’t I see him quit his active office work and retire 


206 The Fangs of the Serpent 

to his home to escape me? Yes, the slimy devil, he did, 
too. Killed himself to get away from the letters. 

“Why,” he added after a moment’s pause, “even the 
three dots I put on the envelopes must have bothered 
him. And they meant nothing. As I had the first 
letter ready to mail, I was thinking of us three—‘the 
eternal triangle’—and absentmindedly placed three 
dots in a triangle on the face of the message. But I 
let it go. Ever after that each one bore the triangle; 
he learned to recognize it, all right.” 

He stopped; his recital was done. The telling had 
been continuous; the story was complete. Yet there 
were many gaps. Still, for me it had all the earmarks 
of truth. No one could concoct a tale that would 
stand up when exposed to the scrutiny this one would 
receive. 

And he, too, considered Mr. Oswald a suicide. I 
wondered how he would account for the absence of the 
weapon. But all this little interested Sullivan. He 
still might catch the man in a misstatement and prove 
him guilty. 

“He knew you wrote those letters,” he threw at the 
cripple. 

“Not he,” Marsh calmly replied. “He couldn’t be 
sure but that they came from Marian, for he did not 
know if she were living or dead. He dared make no 
move until he did know.” 

Ah, so Lionel Marsh reasoned it out that way. Mr. 
Oswald made no move for fear a nemesis, Marian, was 
on his trail. 

“Say, do you expect sane men to swallow this tale 
you’ve spun? Nothing doing. Come across with the 
truth!” This was the final rally on Abe’s part. Per- 


The Writer of the Letters 207 

haps he might frighten the cripple into a confession 
yet, providing his story was false. 

“You can verify every word I have spoken,” came 
the simple retort. 

“No, you poisoned him. We know it. See, you said 
not a word about the poison of the snake that killed 
him. You introduced it into his museum; it bit him. 
You can’t deny it. We know what you wrote. You 
told him you’d do it; remember ‘Through the Jaws of 
the Serpent!’ ” 


CHAPTER XV. 


THE WEEPING WOMAN. 

I F Sullivan thought that he could “throw a scare’* into 
the cripple by the accusation, he was disappointed. 
The man smiled in a sad way and, raising his hands, 
linked by the irons, made a gesture with both as though 
brushing away an inconsequential matter. 

“That is a matter easily explained,” he said. “The 
village of Two Rocks, where the wretch ruined me, 
takes its name from two large stone pinnacles which 
stand where a hogback runs across the country, one on 
each side of the creek that has cut its way through the 
ridge, and flows through the village. They are tall and 
not unlike jagged teeth. It happened one evening as 
Marian and I stood on the hillside looking down upon 
the little valley, she saw a fancied resemblance in the 
creek, the pillars and the valley, to the jaws of a ser¬ 
pent; the brook was the twisting tongue, the pillars 
the fangs. It did look not unlike a serpent’s jaws, too. 
Ever after that our meeting place was the Jaws, or the 
Fangs, of the Serpent; we used either term, as chance 
happened to bring it up.” 

“Why did you write that to Oswald, then? He knew 
nothing of ‘The Fangs of the Serpent,’ ” Abe fired back 
at him. 

“I had everything to win and nothing to lose. If he 
didn’t know what it meant, his imagination, in connec- 
208 


The Weeping Woman 


209 


tion with 4 M. E.’ would supply it with a sinister sig¬ 
nificance. Yet, had she loved him and had they walked 
there, what more natural than for her to call his atten¬ 
tion to it, too, and to use the term. Then, when he got 
a letter mentioning it, he would think the message came 
direct from her, though he could not be certain. Oh, 
I had him on the grid of worry. Yet if he could have 
spent a year for every moment of sorrow he had caused 
her, it would not be enough. Damn him, how can a 
man believe in the mercy of Heaven when such devils 
as he walk the earth.” 

Abe looked at Smyte; Smyte’s face wore a puzzled 
look. As for me, this part of the case was done; I 
knew that we must look elsewhere for the murderer of 
J. Marion Oswald. No, no cripple, such as the poor 
twisted form before me, could have struggled up four 
flights of stairs, killed Oswald, and come down again 
without being seen. The murderer must, of necessity, 
have been in the room. But Abe wasn’t going to let 
a chance slip through his fingers. 

“Take him to the station! We’ll get the truth out 
of him after a while,” he ordered. 

“Just a moment,” and Marsh spoke most earnestly. 
“Do not be in a hurry about this. If I had killed the 
beast, and by any chance you had trailed me so far, 
I would boast of having done it. But I am not minded 
to die for the cur when I had nothing to do with his 
death. Give me five minutes, and call in those whose 
names I give you, and I will show you that on the day 
he died, and for three days before and a week after I 
was confined to my bed with a flare-up of this rheuma¬ 
tism.” 

He did it, too. There was nothing for Smyte and 


210 The Fangs of the Serpent 

Abe to do but to set him free, and they did. A growled 
apology accompanied the removal of the irons. Marsh 
took it all in good part. 

“There is no apology necessary,” he remarked as he 
struggled to a more upright position. “I have followed 
the case closely and have been expecting you. I figured 
that it was merely a matter of time before the letters 
would be found and myself located. I am sorry to have 
to disappoint you; it would be one of the happiest 
hours of my life could I stand here and tell you that I 
had paid my debt to that devil’s spawn. As it is— 
well, what have I to live for? Marian is gone—love is 
lost; Oswald is dead—revenge is lost. Before me lie— 
days—days—days, empty days.” 

Back at the station the three officers were sent off 
duty and Smyte returned to his home. Sullivan and I 
sat down in the office. Abe was worried. 

“Don’t it beat hell?” he remarked, as he turned the 
matter over in his mind. “Here I think we have landed 
the man, and it’s a fluke. Say, this blamed Oswald case 
is getting on my nerves. Can’t I make a move that 
won’t fizzle out?” and he flashed a long brown cigar 
from his pocket, bit off a good inch of the end, and 
lighted up. 

“Look at it any way you want to,” he went on, as 
the cigar glowed red under the fierce draught he put 
upon it, “what more do we know about the killing of 
Oswald than we did after the inquest? He’s found dead 
with two holes in his wrist. By Jove,” and he thumped 
the desk with his fist, “I’ll go back to first thoughts, 
and bet the old fellow kicked himself off.” 

All that were in the room were Abe, the lieutenant 
in charge, and myself. 


The Weeping Woman 


211 


“The old man was mixed up with the mediums, too. 
That adds an angle that leads your friend Herron’s 
way,” and he looked at me. 

I nodded as I replied. 

“But I wouldn’t say, Abe, that we are no farther 
along than a week ago. We’ve had some pretty fair 
luck of late; just hope for a little more of it and every¬ 
thing will clear up in a hurry. Anyway, we know a lot 
more about Mr. Oswald than we did before locating 
Lionel Marsh. And some of these things may have a 
bearing on his death. We know why the letters were 
written and can surmise why they were concealed.” 

“Sure,” from Abe, “the old boy didn’t know if the 
woman was alive or not; until he did, he dared make no 
open move.” 

“Yes,” I assented, “no open move. But what con¬ 
cealed moves did he make? There was one that is clear 
to all of us.” 

“It is? Not to me!” Abe’s eyes showed doubt. 
“What was it?” 

“I don’t see it either,” added the lieutenant. 

“Yet both of you clearly recognize it,” I explained. 
“Think a moment. Wasn’t it shortly after the receipt 
of the first of these letters that he began to manifest 
an interest in psychic phenomena? Probably, if we 
could know the exact truth, we would find that the date 
when he began his investigations closely coincides with 
his certain knowledge that the writer knew of his life 
with Marian Ellerson. What does he do? Gets in 
touch with the principal mediums in an endeavor to 
find out if she is alive or not. Evidently his luck was 
poor, and he was no better off than when he started. 
He doesn’t know if she is in the land beyond, or is 


212 


The Fangs of the Serpent 


still here; at least he has received no definite answer. 
Does he give up ?” 

“Not a man like old Oswald,” put in the lieutenant. 

“Right,” I went on, “he does not. His life, his train¬ 
ing, lead him to the conclusion that what he undertakes 
cannot fail. If others can be mediums, why not he? 
He tries it, apparently with success. But how much, 
that is the thing we have to measure.” 

“Say, you don’t swallow that stuff about the spirit 
coming, do you?” Sullivan’s tone was sarcastic. 

“Hold on, Abe,” I retorted, “I’ve seen her. Don’t 
forget that.” 

“Well, I haven’t. Also, there is a slim chance that I 
will,” he added grimly. 

“Recall what Miss Oswald reports of the conversa¬ 
tions, and what I myself heard.” Abe and the lieu¬ 
tenant exchanged glances. “There are but two reason¬ 
able hypotheses; either the spirit is genuine, or we 
have some one on the inside at the seances who knows a 
remarkable lot about J. Marion Oswald and his affairs, 
especially about the past.” 

“Who knows ?” the lieutenant asked, looking at Abe. 

“Don’t ask me,” Abe threw back. “I’m in a condi¬ 
tion any school kid would call funk.” The lieutenant 
shifted his glance to me. I deliberated a moment, 
before replying. 

“At a guess, I’d say that those most likely to know 
something are the butler, Tasker; Oswald’s personal 
attorney, Stitmore Tithes; and his secretary, Reacon 
Mars. For it must be some one who has first or second 
hand knowledge, and these are those who have it.” 

“You’ll have to leave out the secretary then,” Abe 
argued. “He is a young fellow and has been with 


The Weeping Woman 


213 


Oswald only five years. Unless he got hold of some 
documents, and it don’t look as if there were many in 
this case. If he had, Mars would have let us in. He 
hasn’t anything to gain by holding out on us.” 

“But the other two?” inquired the lieutenant. 

“Well, I don’t know,” and Abe scratched his head. 
“Of course an old seravnt like the butler is bound to 
see some funny things happening right under his nose; 
he’s in the house, too,—now, I wonder,” and Abe looked 
off into vacancy for a moment. “Say, could he be 
bringing in the medium and posting her?” 

The lieutenant and I smiled. “Never mind him. 
How about the third member?” I asked. 

“He’s a pretty big man,” Abe stated, slowly, tap¬ 
ping the arm of his chair. “His business, besides what 
Oswald threw his way, is large. He has influence; he’s 
one of the comers. Pretty well fixed, too, according 
to report.” 

“And he’ll be better fixed in the near future,” the 
lieutenant added. “He’s engaged to old Oswald’s 
daughter.” 

From the moves Abe made, I could see that it was 
news to him. He looked first at the lieutenant as 
though to be sure he had heard aright; then he turned, 
slowly, and confronted me; there was a question in his 
eyes I could not escape. I nodded. It was true. 
Isobel was mine; she loved me and was promised to me 
by all the vows lovers hold most dear. But—she had 
not yet broken her engagement to Tithes. 

“H’m, is that so,” remarked Sullivan very slowly 
and distinctly, “I wouldn’t be surprised—” He did 
not finish. Stitmore Tithes had influence. Sullivan 
would make no statements, even among friends, as he 


214 The Fangs of the Serpent 

was now, that reflected in any way on as big a man as 
the lawyer. But in his mind suspicion was born, as for 
some time it had existed in my thoughts; there was the 
motive; was there the opportunity? could Tithes 
account for all of his time on the day Mr. Oswald was 
found dead? 

Though Tithes and I both loved Isobel, or rather, I 
worshiped her, and she was engaged to him, we had 
never met. I had seen him at close hand only on the 
day of the inquest; the lines of our lives had not yet 
crossed openly. 

What I knew of him and what dislike I had for him 
came from a reading beneath the surface when Isobel 
told me why she was in no hurry to break with the 
attorney. I tried to be honest, tried to give him the 
benefit of the doubt; yet among all the theories that 
had come to me, the one involving Stitmore Tithes was 
the only one that had a deep, clear-cut motive back of 
it. Married to Isobel, with her father out of the way, 
he became the uncrowned king of America. No single 
individual would control such vast holdings as he. 

The one element against his committing the deed 
was that there seemed to be no need for such haste as 
the murder indicated. In the natural course of affairs, 
Mr. Oswald had but a short time to live; then why 
hurry him over the great divide? Unless there was 
something in Tithe’s life that was in'danger of reaching 
the multimillionaire’s ears, and which, coming to them, 
would forever remove Stitmore Tithes from the list of 
possible husbands of Isobel? For Isobel’s sake, and 
for his own, Larry Bowen would make every effort to 
find out. 

Abe broke in on my reflections. 


The Weeping Woman 215 

There is also another thing to consider. 5 * He 
leaned over, knocked the ashes from his cigar, and as 
he straightened back in his chair, his eyes fastened 
themselves on mine. “Another party had the chance— 
and she had the opportunity . 55 

She she 5 for a moment I failed to comprehend. 
Then with rage boiling in my breast, I bounded from 
my chair. “She—don’t you dare mention her name in 
that connection, Abe Sullivan, or I’ll beat the life out 
of you . 55 

Abe’s glance never faltered. 

“Sit down, boy,” and his voice was stern, yet had in 
it a kindly note. The lieutenant rose and stretched 
himself; he was a huge man. I saw that I had no 
chance, physically, with these two. I subsided. 

“Listen, you , 55 and my voice trembled, “I know that 
Miss Oswald is as innocent as—as—as you are, Lieu¬ 
tenant , 55 and I appealed to him. “I know it. I — 55 
but I stopped. 

“Larry, I’m not quite as blind as you think I am . 55 
Abe paused, reflectively. “But that aside, I am not 
accusing her. It is just a case of motive and oppor¬ 
tunity. We find in all cases where murder is committed 
that there is always a reason in some one’s mind, why 
it is necessary. This reason falls in one of two classes; 
it is committed either for personal profit or for revenge. 
I first thought that Oswald had killed himself; but if 
he didn’t, then it looked most uncommonly like a case 
of revenge. But that as a motive seems to be slipping 
away. On the other hand, who profits? To-night I 
learn that Stitmore Tithes is one; and the other is— 
the daughter . 55 

I writhed. 


216 The Fangs of the Serpent 

“Profit? How?” I flew to her defense. “She had 
all she wished, and in the course of time, a very few 
years, she’d have lost her father. He couldn’t have 
lived much longer. Motives? She had none. 

“All right,” acquiesced Abe. “Of coure we look first 
to see who has a motive for a murder; then,, among 
those we seek the ones that had an opportunity. In 
this case, possibly Tithes—certainly Miss Oswald.”. 

“Yes,” I sneered, “and the butler, and the maids, 
and every one else in the house. Drop it, Abe drop 
it. I’m going to the office.” 

Yet as I ran out, hailed a taxi, and was carried 
away, I was much disturbed. Not as to the guilt of 
Isobel. No, of course she was innocent of any knowl¬ 
edge as to how her father died. But I worried because, 
if the police had it in their thick heads that she had a 
motive and the opportunity, it would be right in line 
with their methods to attempt some third degree stunt. 
And I would not have her harassed by a single ques¬ 
tion. The poor girl was weighed down now, under a 
load of worry and of fear, fear that her father would 
be forever branded as a self-murderer. 

As soon as I reached the News office I called up the 
Oswald home, and, speaking to Tasker, told him to tell 
his mistress that I would be up to see her on a very 
important mission in about an hour. Then I gave my¬ 
self over to the writing of the story of the raid on 
Lionel Marsh’s rooms, and the story he had told. 

Had I the power, I would have suppressed the 
details, but I realized that under present circumstances 
it would be of no avail. It would simply mean that the 
News would be without them when every other sheet 


The Weeping Woman 217 

fras running the life of Oswald as Davis in full. The 
task completed, I started for IsobePs home. 

This was one time that I would much rather not have 
gone. My heart was heavy and I dreaded telling the 
poor girl the story Lionel Marsh unfolded. But if I 
did not, she would get it in all its hideous details 
through the press. And I, in the telling, could soften 
the harshness, though my Isobel must now learn that 
she had not been her father’s only child. 

Was the other daughter living? I turned the ques¬ 
tion over and over in my mind as the machine hurried 
me along. Sullivan had failed to press for information 
on this detail from Marsh. Or he might have been 
satisfied that the cripple had revealed all he knew. The 
child had been placed in a poor family which had 
moved away, leaving no trace. This argued that the 
girl was dead, for several very strong reasons. The 
mortality among infants is very great; second, it is 
especially large among babies deprived of a mother’s 
care; and third, the infant death rate is greatest among 
the very poor. These three reasons, cumulative in a 
multiple degree, satisfied me that there were only two 
chances in a hundred that the child still lived. Doubt¬ 
less she was dead, though no one knew positively. 

But even if she were alive, the odds against her 
showing up in this case were still greater ; about one 
to a thousand, I estimated. There was nothing that 
she could lay hold of, that I could see, that would 
enable her to connect her life with that of J. Marion 
Oswald. She had gone with people other than her 
mother; if she used any name it was probably theirs. 
Even did she know the name of her father, she would 
suppose it to be Davis; her mother had known no other 


218 The Fangs of the Seepent 

for the man who had tossed her aside as he was wont 
to toss aside the womout wrecks he made in his plants. 

I alighted from the cab at the Oswald’s gate and 
started to walk to the doorway. I noticed, as I entered, 
an elderly lady on the opposite side of the street who 
appeared to be greatly worried. When she saw that I 
was looking her way, she gave one last glance at the 
Oswald house and hastened away. I thought no more 
of the matter and passed in to be met by the courtly, 
courteous Tasker. 

This was a hard evening for me. The dear girl took 
it all well, but it meant that the ideals of a lifetime had 
been rudely shattered. Her father had always been 
kind and gentle with her, in so far as within him lay the 
power to be kind and gentle. He had been indulgent, 
he had made a companion of her, and now she had to 
hear a story such as Lionel Marsh had brought to us^ 

At first she flatly refused to believe a word of it; 
as I proceeded she came round to a heartbroken accept¬ 
ance of it, only to fly again to the other extreme and, 
as I was leaving, admonish me that I must secure 
assistance and investigate every detail of the story. I 
never had need to; things began to swing along swiftly 
toward the end. 

As I came down the steps from the house, I saw again 
the woman on the far side of the street. I thought I 
saw her wringing her hands, but as I moved down the 
walk, she started off up the street. The night was 
clear and the street lights closely placed, so that I 
could see plainly every movement she made. 

As she walked away, she kept glancing back, surrep¬ 
titiously. Under ordinary circumstances I should have 
thought little of her actions. In Chicago, the first 


The Weeping Woman 


219 


lesson imbibed by the Chicagoan, aye, even in the 
cradle, is to mind his own business. Even in my pro¬ 
fession we do not meddle in the affairs of others unless 
we have a very good reason. 

But there had been too many tilings happening about 
the Oswald house for me to pass by any offering, how¬ 
ever far removed it might appear to be from a direct 
connection with the death of Mr. Oswald. I followed 
after her, but on the opposite side of the street. As 
she peered around and saw me traveling in the same 
direction as herself, she quickened her pace until she 
came to the first cross street, where she turned to the 
right; I turned to the right after her. When at her 
next look back she saw that I was coming in the same 
direction, she put on more speed, but she could not lose 
me. I was not long in overtaking her. 

When I came up with her I saw that she was a vigor¬ 
ous, well-preserved woman in the sixties. She was well, 
even expensively, dressed; I could see that. In fact, 
the surprising thing was that one in such garments 
should be walking the streets of a winters night, when 
the walks were covered with snow and a biting breeze 
blowing in from the lake. 

Her face was drawn and her eyes were reddened. 
Was it from the wind, or from weeping? As I ap¬ 
proached her more closely her lips began to tremble. 
She stepped aside, moderating her pace, to permit me 
to pass. I had no such intention. 

“I beg your pardon, madam,” I said, touching my 
cap as I fell into step beside her, “but did you not drop 
this down the other street a bit, just before you turned 
the corner,” and I pulled a handkerchief from the 
pocket of my overcoat and handed it to her. 


220 The Fangs of the Serpent 

It was distinctively a man’s, by no chance to be 
taken for a lady’s pocket piece; also, as she had kept 
close watch of me by looking back, ever since I left the 
Oswald house, she would know that I could not by any 
possibility have picked up the piece of linen where I 
said I did. Yet she made no attempt to refuse it. 

“Oh, thank you, sir.” Her voice was deep and melo¬ 
dious and, aside from a slight tremble, firm and well- 
controlled. “I missed it but a few seconds ago and was 
looking for it, but it escaped me; my eyes are not what 
they once were.” 

The piercing gaze she bestowed on me belied that 
statement, nor were there marks of eyeglasses upon 
her nose. 

“Thank you,” she said again, and still further 
slowed her gait, expecting me to go ahead about my 
affairs. 

“Pardon me, again, my dear madam,” I returned, 
“but will you not permit me to call a taxi? You are 
tired and weary. May I not summon one?” 

At once she took another tack. She bristled, and in 
a tone of extreme hauteur, bade me leave her at once. 

“If you do not,” she snapped, “I will summon a 
policeman.” 

I saw a patrolman two blocks ahead. 

“Permit me, madam, I will do it for you.” 

Were we both bluffing? Would I have called to him? 
I do not know. But to her it made no difference; she 
dared not risk the chance that I might beckon. She 
wilted. I was fearful for a moment that she would 
collapse upon the walk. 

“Who are you, and what do you want?” she faltered. 
“Are you from the police?” 


The Weeping Woman 


221 


I shook my head and a yellow cab just then heaving 
in sight around a corner, I signaled to the driver. 
Luckily it was not engaged. As it drew in alongside 
the curb, I motioned to her to get in. She complied 
and as she was being seated I whispered the directions 
to the driver. 

It was a drive of half an hour, during which she did 
not speak a dozen words. I had endeavored to get her 
to tell me why she was walking up and down before the 
Oswald house, only to be met with stony silence. I 
began to develop a chilly sensation in the region of the 
spine as the car drew up in front of the police head¬ 
quarters. 

“I thought you said you were not a policeman,” she 
spoke reproachfully. I assisted her to alight and 
walked with her to the entrance. 

“Nor am I, madam,” I assured her, as I nodded to 
the lieutenant as we came in. “There have been some 
weird happenings in the neighborhood where I encoun¬ 
tered you, and I had a feeling that you might assist us 
in explaining them.” 

This speech was sheer bravado. If she turned out 
to be wholly innocent, one Larry Bowen was in for the 
time of his life. I had taken big chances; how would 
they work out? 

Sullivan had long ago gone home and I seated the 
lady in a chair while I called up his house. Yes, Abe 
was at home. Luckily it was only midnight and he 
was not yet in bed. His wife, who had answered the 
buzzer, called him to the telephone. 

“Say, Abe,” I began, “I was up to call upon Miss 
Oswald this evening and I saw a woman acting very 
suspiciously across the street from the house,” and I 


222 The Fangs of the Serpent 

started to explain just what I had done. But Abe 
wouldn’t let me finish. 

“Tell the lieutenant to hold her there at the station, 
and to let no one see her,” he ordered. “Get the 
department’s nearest car and bring two of the boys 
with you. It’s the Oswald house. I’ll meet you there. 
Rush!” and he hung up. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


DEBORAH MATERIALIZES. 

W HEN Abe Sullivan, listening at his end of the 
wire* broke in upon the tale I was telling, I was 
amazed. I had taken a woman to the main police sta¬ 
tion on a very slim pretext; it might have put me into 
serious trouble. Yet no sooner does Sullivan get the 
first half of the story, than he senses something that 
, was way beyond me. I could not see why the fact that 
this woman was walking up and down in the street 
before the Oswald home, wringing her hands, should 
induce Abe to order a hurry-up move on the house. It 
could not be that Isobel was in danger, for I had left 
her but shortly before and had kept the woman in sight 
up to the time I brought her to the station. 

There had been something in Abe’s voice that bade 
me ask no questions and to make haste. The quick, 
incisive tones had told of some anxiety; yet there was 
a satisfaction ringing through them for which I could 
not account on the assumption that our immediate 
presence was desired at Isobel’s residence. 

I wasted no time. The woman was consigned to the 
matron of the station, two men were assigned to accom¬ 
pany me, and we went hurling out of the station in one 
of the department’s Black Marias within five minutes 
of my receiving the message from Abe. The chauffeur 
had orders to hurry and he did, in spite of the snow 
and ice in the street. 


223 


224 The Fangs of the Serpent 

As we drove up in front of the Oswald mansion, the 
two men and I dropped off. Abe had not yet arrived, 
nor was his car in sight; yet we had time for no more 
than a dozen breaths ere it appeared in the distance, 
approaching at a terrific pace. With a rush it drew 
up, stopped, and Sullivan tumbled out. 

“Come on, boys,” he cried, as he started up the walk 
toward the house. “The trap’s sprung.” 

Sullivan rushed up to the front door and rang the 
bell. We were admitted by Tasker, whom Abe had 
telephoned. As we entered, he said some words to the 
butler I did not catch. Closing the door after we had 
all stepped in, the old man led us rapidly down the hall 
and to the rear of the house. Turning out of the main 
passage, he opened a door and Abe now took the lead. 
In a moment we began to descend; when the bottom of 
the stairs was reached I realized that we were in the 
basement of the dwelling. Sullivan halted us to give 
instructions. 

“Get your guns, boys, and have your clubs ready. 
I’ve every reason to believe that a trap I set some time 
ago has sprung and that we are about to make an im¬ 
portant capture. If it is the curari murderer, watch 
his every motion, and at any suspicious movement 
shoot; not to kill, just wing him. Now come on and 
keep quiet.” He started on ahead, we trailing behind, 
the old butler last. 

We passed through a large room, the laundry, I 
judged, through a smaller compartment, then to the 
right into the space set apart for the furnace. Here 
he stopped, and without speaking indicated a pile of 
packing boxes in the southeast corner. Abe now chose 
positions for us, sending each to a place by a wave of 


Deborah Materializes 


225 


the hand; and it was easy to see that every one was so 
fixed that they commanded the boxes. He had not 
switched on the light as we came in, but made his dis¬ 
positions by the illumination that came in from the 
room we had just quitted, and by the aid of his power¬ 
ful electric torch. Tasker he motioned to remain out¬ 
side the door, but I and the two officers were assigned 
to points hidden in the gloom. 

With cautious tread he approached the boxes, which 
lay so that the light shining through the door fell full 
upon them, and moved two of them slightly. This 
uncovered a portion of the south wall of the cellar, and 
I noted with some surprise that a huge bar was caught 
across the stones. What it was doing there puzzled 
me. Abe evidently knew all about it, for he reached 
over and lifted it, pushing the beam far back out of 
sight behind the boxes. He then wiggled a stone or did 
something else to the wall, for all of a sudden a part 
swung out into the room, revealing a dark hole. 

Or rather, what seemed to be a part of the wall 
moved under his touch; in reality it was a door of 
boards with rock and mortar cleverly fastened to them, 
simulating, even to the ragged joining of the stones, 
the wall as it appeared. It might have been possible 
to detect the joints in the full light of day, but here in 
the cellar, though I knew where it was, I have shut the 
door several times since, but never have been able to 
see the joints. 

As he threw the door open, Abe flashed his lights 
within. I noticed that he was very careful not to stand 
directly behind the torch, but leaned far over to one 
side. The glow of the bulb lighted up the cavity, and 


226 


The Fangs of the Serpent 

we saw that it was not deep, a little over two feet 
square; it was empty, or so it seemed. 

“Come on out of there,” Abe commanded, and moved 
his body to ^new position, though holding the torch 
steady. He was taking no chances of having two neat 
little holes drilled in his skin. No answer. He waited 
patiently for several minutes, then called again. 
Another wait. This time his patience was rewarded. 
Slowly a foot came into view, followed by another 
descending from above by iron steps driven into the 
stones of the wall. A black skirt followed and shortly 
there stepped out of the doorway into our presence a 
young lady, tall, and fair of face. For one in her 
predicament she was very self-possessed, and bowed in 
the direction of the light; I do not believe she could 
see Abe; certainly none of us was visible. 

And the answer to why Abe had known, flashed 
through my thoughts. The woman I had apprehended 
was the key that unlocked the situation. He reasoned, 
as I now did, that she was a mother made anxious by 
the non-appearance of some one who had gone into the 
Oswald house. Not knowing of the trap, the mother 
could not know what had happened, and would fear 
the worst. Hence her vigil. And also, Abe’s first 
intimation that his snare might hold a prisoner. 

“Turn on the lights,” Abe called, and Tasker, at the 
door, made haste to obey. As they flashed up, we 
arose and came forward. There was nothing to be 
afraid of in this girl who had just stepped out of the 
dark hole. She calmly looked us over, raising a hand 
to tuck back a stray strand of her hair. As she lifted 
it, we saw that it was soiled, bruised and bleeding. 

Sullivan placed her in the custody of the two officers 


Deborah Materializes 


227 


and made a further demand on the dark opening; but 
no one else came out though he waited for some time. 
Abe then ventured to put the torch inside and turn the 
light upward. The place was empty. Ltis trap had 
sprung and caught—just this one prisoner. Or had 
he thought one would be all? But surely this fine 
young creature could not be connected either directly 
or indirectly with the death of J. Marion Oswald. 

She was about thirty, judging from her looks, with 
a firm, clean-lipped mouth. Her eyes were deep and 
thoughtful, and as I gazed into them I had a fleeting 
impression of having gazed into their depths before. 
She made no sign that she recognized me; even though 
I might think that I knew her, she did not think that 
she knew me; or else she was a marvelous actor. 

She had spoken no word since she had stepped out 
of the dark cavity, yet she did not seem worried. It 
was rather as though we interested her, than that she 
was the object of our scrutiny. 

Sullivan, after examining it from the basement, had 
entered the hole and disappeared upward. In a short 
time he returned, bringing with him a bunch of cloth 
of some kind. He left the opening and walked over to 
the girl. 

“Young woman, I don’t know who you are, but you 
sure have nerve. Say, boys,” and he included us, “if 
this lady had had another hour or so, there would have 
been a neat hole through the outside wall of the chim¬ 
ney, and she would have made her getaway. Look at 
her hands. That’s how she injured them.” 

Chimney? So that cavity was in the chimney; now 
I understood; I had as yet had not time to localize 
objects and so had not connected the opening with the 


228 The Fangs of the Serpent 

flues springing up on the south side of the house. But 
Abe was continuing. 

“Yes, sir; if I’d got here an hour later I’d have 
found my trap empty. Did she sit down and repine 
when she found herself locked in? She did not. She 
wrenched out one of the ladder irons and with it 
attacked the brick on the inside. The hole she made 
was nearly large enough for her to get through, though 
it is still covered by a veneer of a single layer of bricks 
on the outside. As soon as she had the inside ready, 
all she had to do was to make sure it was night without, 
work a few bricks loose, slip through and drop to the 
ground. Then she’d have disappeared and we’d never 
have seen you back here again, would we, miss?” 

She made no answer to Abe’s question directed at 
her, though a slow smile curved her lips; she heard. 
Sullivan unrolled the cloth he had found. As he shook 
it out, a large black gown was revealed. With a deft 
twist he turned it and a white, shimmering robe was 
before us. 

“Deborah’s dress,” I gasped. 

“Yes, this lady is your spirit Deborah.” Abe’s 
laugh was coarse. “This is the visitant from another 
world that you tried to reach and that you saw floating 
away in a mist.” 

So this was our visitor. No wonder I thought I 
knew the face, the eyes; I had seen her that night, 
though dimly as through a fog. There could be no 
doubt that she was Deborah; otherwise what was she 
doing in that part of the chimney, for the opening from 
which she had come was but an unused flue of the great 
brick stack Abe had been interested in when we visited 


Deborah Materializes 


229 


the Oswald house after the spirit had materialized for 
Isobel and me that evening. 

“Hold on, Abe,” I exclaimed, as an idea come to me. 
“If she was Deborah, instead of staying inside that 
chimney when she found her escape by this door cut 
off, why didn’t she use the other outlet? She could 
have watched her chance and easily escaped from the 
house.” 

“Say, y°u don’t think I am quite as simple as that.” 
Abe grinned; he was jubilant. “Of course I stopped 
up the other exit, too.” 

We had snared our prey; there was nothing more 
for us to do here. The entrance to the flue was closed 
and, escorting the prisoner, we went back to the 
machines and returned to the main station. Isobel 
we did not see. She knew nothing of the capture until 
next morning. 

When we got to Central Station with the girl, she 
was taken into the woman’s ward. As we entered, the 
woman I had brought there an hour before, rose from 
the chair in which she was sitting, gave a relieved sigh 
and with arms extended to our prisoner cried, “Oh, 
dearie, I’m so glad; I was so afraid something had 
happened.” 

“Mother,” the girl echoed the older womon’s relief, 
but in a different way. It was the first word we had 
heard her speak. Her face went white for a moment, 
then self-possession came back to her and she started 
for the older lady. But one of the policemen held her 
back; there should be no communication between the 
two until the police were ready to permit it. 

“Put them in separate cells,” Sullivan ordered the 
matron. They were led away. The lady I had picked 


230 The Fangs of the Serpent 

up had simply been held, not locked up, as Abe had not 
sent any such orders to me when he telephoned. Now 
he took me over to his office for a chat. 

Sullivan was pleased with himself. Going into a 
closet, he presently returned with a box of long brown 
cigars; shortly the air was blue with smoke. 

Abe explained in detail what had led up to the cap¬ 
ture. He believed in no ghost, spirit or wraith; to him 
they were frauds, pure and simple. After hearing 
Isobel tell of the seances conducted by her father, he 
was sure that there was a fakir somewhere, but he 
couldn’t be certain just where. But when Deborah 
had materialized for Isobel and me, he knew he had not 
far to look before he found the trail. In Mr. Oswald’s 
bedroom, on his inspection, he was pretty positive that 
he could tell where and how the spirit entered. But 
when he walked around the house and saw the nearness 
of the chimney to the room, its size and convenience, he 
was dead sure that he had spotted the means used by 
Deborah in appearing to the Oswalds and, later, to 
Isobel and me. 

Even though he had found out these facts, he had 
not caught the person or persons using this prepared 
trail, nor could he see any means of tracing them 
directly. So he decided to take a long chance and set 
a trap in case any one did return again. 

He had said nothing to any one, save Tasker, and 
the latter only had a hazy idea of what Sullivan was 
doing. He had returned alone and made a thorough 
investigation of the flue and the opening in the base¬ 
ment. This concealed door he had found only after a 
long and laborious search. This I had seen, but he 


Deborah Materializes 


231 


explained that the hidden exit on the upper level was 
fully as ingenious as the lower. 

The comer of the room next the chimney was used 
by Mr. Oswald for his wardrobe, a three-cornered 
affair. In this had been constructed a sliding panel. 
To make detection still more difficult, the wall behind, 
which was paneled in oak as was the rest of the sleeping 
chamber, had a second hidden entrance. Abe had 
simply fastened these two with screws, concealed a 
huge bar over the lower opening, so that the beam 
would drop down after the door had been opened and 
closed, locking it shut, and sat down to wait. 

He was taking many a chance, yet what else could 
he do? If the girl had left the door open after she 
entered, or had she opened and closed it before entering, 
she would have escaped the bar, or having found it, 
have gone away or removed it and Abe would have 
secured nothing for his pains. But—luck was with 
him; he had made his haul. 

We didn’t stay in Abe’s room long. I wanted to get 
home and catch what sleep I could before attending the 
preliminary examination of Deborah and her mother, 
which Abe said would be held next morning . 

I managed to get up and get to court before the 
girl and the older woman were brought in. The district 
attorney, Cummings, was there. He had come in per¬ 
son to conduct the examination. There was no know¬ 
ing in what direction it might turn, nor whom it might 
involve. In a way, the inquiry was extra-judicial, and 
as such not open to the public, but the case was of 
such importance that reporters from all papers were 
admitted. 

The girl was the first one to be led forward. She 


232 The Fangs of the Serpent 

looked about the same as the night before, though not 
so bedraggled. Her air of self-assurance still clung 
to her; nay, it dominated her. The distict attorney 
struck a snag immediately. She answered no ques¬ 
tions, either as to name, or anything else; not only 
that, she simply refused to talk. Promises, pleas, 
threats; she disregarded all alike. It was exasper¬ 
ating. The district attorney got angry, thoroughly 
angry. 

“Well, miss, if you will not talk now, we shall have 
to find a way to make you. When you face a jury on 
the charge of murdering J. Marion Oswald, you may 
be glad of a chance to speak, a chance to explain what 
you were doing in the place where you were caught last 
night.” 

Still she said not a word. She listened attentively 
to all he had to say, as though it greatly interested her, 
but that she was not directly concerned in the matter. 
I began to speculate; might there not be some big fact 
back of her assurance? or did she know, as I did, that 
Cummings was bluffing? that the police had not a single 
fact to connect her with the death of Mr. Oswald? The 
district attorney gave up and tried a new tack. 

“Bring in the mother,” he ordered. “Let us see if 
she will talk.” 

With an upright bearing the older lady entered. 
She was no longer the tired, worried woman of the 
evening before. The big man was ready for her. He 
began firing questions at her before she was seated. 

“You are Madame Giovanetti Blatavaratsky, are you 
not? You are a trance medium and hold seances at 
nine thousand and five Elkwood Avenue?” 


Deborah Materializes 233 

The woman made no reply until she had adjusted 
herself to the chair, and then answered, 44 Yes.” 

44 In your business one name is as good as another”; 
sarcastically. 44 I do not suppose we can persuade you 
to tell your real one.” She faced him serenely as she 
retorted. 

“Certainly I will tell it. It is a name that I am proud 
to own, Mrs. Margaret O’Regan, widow of Michael.” 

I heard Abe give a low whistle. O’Regan! That 
might mean a lot of things. He bent across the table 
and whispered to Attorney Cummings. The latter 
looked at the medium with a new light in his eyes. 

“Have you a daughter Anna?” he hurled at her. 
She was not taken aback. She answered promptly. 

“I have.” 

“Is she a maid in the Oswald home?” 

“She is.” 

He dropped that line for a moment. 

“Your daughter here,” and he indicated the silent 
girl with a wave of the hand, “was taken in rather 
peculiar circumstances.” 

No answer from Madame Blatavaratsky, otherwise 
Mrs. O’Regan. The district attorney thought to be 
facetious. 

“Perhaps you can tell us by what right she was found 
in J. Marion Oswald’s house at midnight, an uninvited 
guest, to put it mildly.” 

“I certainly can.” Her voice rang clear and loud. 
“By the best right in the world. A daughter is ever 
privileged to enter her father’s home.” 

The district attorney collapsed into a chair. Abe 
started to his feet. As for me, I was dumbfounded. 
The girl on the other side of the table caught her 


234$ The Fangs of the Serpent 

breath and a crimson tide flooded her face. Grasping 
the arms of her chair, she turned full on her mother 
with a choking cry. 

“Mother!” 

“There, there, honey,” the older woman soothed. “I 
had to tell it.” To the district attorney, “To this poor 
child I have always been mother; she has never known, 
any other, though she always knew I was not her real 
mother, but she grew up with me and always called 
me that. She supposes that her own name is Davis, 
June Davis. This I, too, thought until some two years 
ago; then I learned differently.” 

The district attorney had recovered, but he made 
no move to check her, nor did Abe suggest it. Police 
methods were working smoothly. Get somebody; make 
them talk. The mother was willing; and from appear¬ 
ances the girl, too, was no longer inclined to be un¬ 
communicative. Here was the verbal harvest that 
Cummings and Sullivan longed to reap. The problem 
of who murdered J. Marion Oswald was about to be 
solved! 

“A daughter had every right to enter her father’s 
home.” This one sentence changed the complexion of 
the whole case in their estimation. Even if the daugh¬ 
ter had killed her father, and of that there was no 
proof, in view of the testimony Lionel Marsh would 
give, there was no jury that could be gathered in 
Chicago, or elsewhere, that would convict. If she had 
not, then was she still a daughter of J. Marion Oswald, 
a man of power, and that meant that gloves must be 
used in handling her. While the district attorney rose 
to his feet, and Abe lay back in his chair, his head on 
his chest, Mrs. O’Regan began to tell what she knew. 


Deborah Materializes 


235 


“Thirty years ago we were living in Belfontaine, 
Wisconsin, a small village. For a neighbor we had 
Mrs. Marian Davis, who had been deserted by her 
husband shortly before giving birth to a girl. Mrs. 
Davis was without funds and was compelled to go out 
to work as soon as she was able, to find support for 
herself and the child. She found it impossible to take 
the little one with her each day, and as I was always 
at home she formed the habit of leaving it with me. 
Finally she secured a fairly good position in another 
town, and made arrangements with me to keep the baby 
until she could come and get it, paying me a small 
sum each month. For a while she sent the money, then 
it stopped coming.” 

I looked at June Davis and a great pity for this fine 
woman, beaten, borne down, with her story now being 
unfolded to an unsympathetic world, took possession of 
me. And she—was Isobel’s sister. 

Mrs. O’Regan kept on with her story. 

“About this time Michael was offered a good position 
in Chicago. I tried to reach Mrs. Davis, but could not 
find her. At the last place at which she had worked 
they told me she had been taken sick and had gone to 
the hospital, but they did not know which one. I tried 
all within a radius of twenty miles but she had been 
at none of these. I tried every possible means to locate 
her, but without avail. We moved here, bringing the 
child, and from that day to this, except for occasions 
I shall mention, I never heard a word of Mrs. Davis. 
I do not know if she is alive or dead.” 

After having heard Lionel Marsh’s confession, several 
of us in the room were in a position to inform her. Had 
she been at liberty, she would have known, for the day’s 


236 


The Fangs of the Serpent 

papers were carrying the full story, and she there would 
have read that Marian Ellarson Davis died in her old 
lover’s arms some years ago. 

“The years passed,” Mrs. O’Regan went on. 
“Michael was killed at his work and I was left to shift 
alone. I had always been an adept at minor psychic 
work and gradually I drifted into the profession. I 
made good and developed a very extensive practice. As 
my children became older, I tried to break them into 
the game, too. Annie had no head for it; she went 
into service. But June was a scholar after my own 
heart. She is far better now than I ever was. Her 
mediumistic work has attracted attention from coast 
to coast. No one can equal her in the extent or the 
clarity of the messages received from the other plane. 
There is not a reputable investigator of psychic 
phenomena who does not know and has not tested her 
powers. All of you know of her by her mediumistic 
name,” proclaimed Madame Blatavaratsky proudly, 
“Elethea Temby.” 

Another quirk in this case: the daughter of J. Marion 
Oswald was the famed Elethea Temby. Queer how 
things turn out. One of the greatest psychics the age 
has known, for over and over her work had been proven 
genuine, connected with a common spiritualist 
charlatan! 

“But to hurry on with my tale.” Mrs. O’Regan 
passed now into the present, or the recent years. “Two 
years ago there came to me for a seance an old man. 
Oh, I knew he did not want to be recognized; but I 
knew him at once. What did he want of a medium, 
he, the great millionaire financier? It was curious, 
what need he might have. I gave him a sitting and 


Deborah Materializes 237 

pleased him, for he came back many times. Then I 
began to discover things. 

“It is the business of mediums to gain an inkling con¬ 
cerning a person’s life from the few words they speak 
during a seance. Not only that, but our answers to 
their questions must be so worded that they suggest 
the next query to be put, which in turn is freighted with 
information for us. 

“It wasn’t long before I found out that Mr. Oswald 
was desperately worried about something. By worm¬ 
ing and twisting, I learned that there was a Marian 
connected with his life in a most intimate matter. That 
was as far as I got with the name before I tried a new 
direction. In this manner I found that Marian had 
lived at Belfontaine years ago. 

“By the association of events he mentioned, I de¬ 
duced the dates as but a year or two previous to the 
time Michael and I had left. I was morally certain 
now that Marian Davis was the woman he was interested 
in; the next time he came I brought in the name Davis, 
but twisted to Davies so he should not think that I 
recognized it. Did he bite? He swallowed the whole 
thing and the line of questions he asked told me the 
whole story. It was then that I knew I was talking 
to the father of my June. 

“Now though I knew it, I had not one scrap of evi¬ 
dence to bolster up my knowledge. Nor was there a 
prospect of getting it while he came to my rooms. I 
determined to drive the seances into his own home and 
began, in a very indirect manner, to suggest it. The 
plan worked; it worked too well. He decided to drop 
us professionals and to go it alone. I had not counted 
on this but it played into our hands just the same. 


238 The Fangs of the Serpent 

If I could assist an amateur in obtaining successful 
seances in his own residence, why not do so ? I did. 

“My daughter Annie had secured a position as maid 
in his house. She came home to visit us every week 
and while she and June were out together one afternoon, 

I kept Annie’s handbag and from her keys which were 
in it, made a complete set. With these it was an easy 
matter to enter the basement in the evening and, late 
at night, to explore the house. After we had taken 
measurements, a door was prepared and later put m 
place. For this I chose a time, easily found out through 
unsuspicious Annie, when master and daughter were 
away and the servants at a dance. This completed, 
the fixing of the steps and the upper panels was a 
simple matter. 

“Now came the biggest task of all*, to instruct June 
and persuade her to materialize. By letting her believe 
that I had promised to help out Mr. Oswald, she began 
to make the trips. Each night when she came back, 
we discussed the questions he had asked. With these 
and the knowledge I had already acquired, questions 
were prepared for June to suggest in her answers the 
next time she went, as well as the answers to give. That 
plan of suggesting the question the sitter is to ask, is 
the basis of our trade. 

“What I was trying to do was to suggest to J. 
Marion Oswald the idea that his daughter was still 
alive, and that he must search her out and provide for 
her. If he should refuse to do this, I hoped to dis¬ 
cover if there were documents extant which would prove 
the connection between Marian Davis and J. Marion 
Oswald. If there were such I needed to find what they 


Deborah Materializes 


239 


were and where concealed. Could I secure these, my 
June would have to be considered. 

“Then chance stepped in just when we were 
progressing finely; Mr. Oswald was killed. I persuaded 
June to make several more trips, on one of which she 
materialized for Miss Oswald and a man. She spent 
most of her time searching for the documents that 
would prove her right to the name Oswald. Though 
she did not know it, I told her that Mr. Oswald had 
some valuable papers of mine when he died, involving 
the name of Davis. It was these she tried to find.” 

She ceased talking. For a moment I did not realize 
that the tale was done. There seemed to be so much 
more that should be told. The narrative had flowed 
on calmly, the district attorney evidently taking the 
view that he had better take what she had to tell now, 
and then use it later. But now that she was done he 
leaped to his feet and in sharp tones sought to lay bare 
the false position she had taken. 

“Ah, after money were you? You admit it? Black¬ 
mail?” As he hurled the final word, Mrs. O’Regan sat 
erect in her chair and with anger in her eye faced her 
accuser. No prisoner was she now, but an insulted 
mother. 

“Look at me.” Her face was white and her voice 
vibrant with suppressed indignation. “Look at me and 
say that! Here am I, an old woman, with but few 
years before me, and you accuse me of that!” Her voice 
sank to deeper and deeper tones in the righteousness 
of her wrath. “No!” It was explosive. “It is justice 
I demand. Justice! That June may have her rights. 
She is J. Marion Oswald’s older daughter, a year the 


240 The Fangs of the Serpent 

senior of Isobel Oswald. Justice! June's rights! I 
mean to see that she gets them.” 

Abe had listened with the greatest care to the story 
Mrs. O’Regan had placed before us. Now he took a 
hand. He suggested a question to the attorney. 

“Why did you have this girl always open her replies 
to Mr. Oswald’s queries with the plea, ‘Do not forget, 
Marion; before it is too late, repent.’ ” 

“It was spoken in hopes of stirring his memory and 
getting him to right the great wrong he had committed. 
But you haven’t quoted it correctly. What June 
always said was, ‘Do not forget Marian; before it is 
too late, repent.’ True, his name happened to be 
Marion, but she was not addressing him, but was re¬ 
calling the woman he had known long ago.” 

Just then June Davis, or Oswald, rose and with a 
deep smile, addressed the district attorney. 

“Pardon me, sir, but I wish to make a statement. 
Mother has tried to assume all the blame and to make 
everything out for herself in the worst possible light. 
Sir, do you think for a moment that I was not fully 
aware of what I was doing? I, too, reasoned from the 
replies; but before that, my first look upon the face 
of him who was my father told me that I was his child. 
Disregard my hair, and my garments, and you will see 
that my features reproduce each for each those of— 
my father.” 

She paused. Every head in the room save Mrs. 
O’Regan’s was turned in her direction. Artists’ pencils 
leaped. Shortly there would appear on the streets, 
papers with a photograph of Mr. Oswald and by it a 
drawing of June Davis, showing her face as the exact 
counterpart of that of her parent. 


Deborah Materializes 


241 


For a breath she remained silent, then went on. 

“After his death I continued the work actuated by 
the same purpose that drove me before. I was not 
working for money, or my rights,—no, not that, 
mother,” she turned to the elder woman. “It was to 
find the record of mother’s marriage to him. For 
though it was polygamous, I am certain that there was 
a ceremony.” 

An attendant came in and tapped Abe on the 
shoulder, and he left the room. As Miss Davis, or 
Oswald, was testifying there came to me again that 
suggestion of autumn woods and their odors. I leaned 
over to Attorney Cummings and requested him to ask 
Miss June if she were addicted to the use of a special 
perfume. Her mother answered the officer’s question, 
as he asked it. 

“She is. I have warned her against it; it is not safe 
in our work, but she persists that a tiny bit does no 
harm but rather stimulates the sensitory imagination 
of a sitter.” 

It all came back to me, the odor at the funeral, on 
that evening in the street as I was entering the News 
office, and the odd thoughts that came to me on the 
night Isobel and I had the private seance. Each time 
it had been due to the presence of this girl. By pre¬ 
meditation at the house, by accident on the street; at 
the funeral. What more natural than for her to attend 
the last rites of the man to whom she owed her being. 
And the eyes I thought I knew! As I had looked into 
the face of June Davis as Deborah, I saw not only her 
father’s features. Again there rose before me the eyes 
of J. Marion Oswald as I had lifted their lids and 


242 The Fangs of the Serpent 

gazed into them. It was clear, now; June Davis had 
her father’s eyes. 

Though the confession we had just heard explained 
the appearances and disappearances of Deborah, it did 
not solve the mystery of J. Marion Oswald’s death. 
Mrs. O’Regan and June had many questions to answer 
before they were cleared of complicity. Cummings 
seemed to believe they were involved, and was 
straightening himself preparatory to beginning a 
verbal bombardment of their stories, when Sullivan 
burst into the room. He hastened to the attorney’s 
side, said something in a low voice, and a look of amaze¬ 
ment overspread that official’s face. 

“We must adjourn this examination,” he stated 
sternly; “new trouble has developed at the Oswald 
home.” 


CHAPTER XVII. 


STITMORE TITHES FINDS THE CURARI. 

T HE information given by the district attorney 
shocked me into violent activity. “More trouble 
at the Oswald home” could mean but one thing,— 
Isobel. God, what could have happened to her? Hid 
the threat we had heard from Deborah, June Davis, 
mean something after all? Was the warning “Con¬ 
sider thy father; as he is now, so shall you be; con¬ 
sider, repent,” a means of telling Isobel that her enemies 
were planning her death by the same means they used 
on her father? Oh, could we have gone farther in the 
inquiry and asked some of the many questions that were 
necessary,—but there was no time now. 

Oh, Isobel, Isobel! if anything has happened to 

you-! No sooner had Cummings heard what 

Sullivan had to say, and then given voice to his 
startling news, than I rushed for Abe. More informa¬ 
tion was what I wanted; more. Was Isobel 

Abe didn't know; the officer who had answered the 
phone told him that it was a woman’s voice; she had 
but stated that there was another mysterious death 
in the Oswald house and to send the police immediately. 

My fear made me nearly frantic. I wanted to start 
at once, to run, ride, any way to get there; but I must 
be going. Abe sensed my troubles and taking me by 
the arm, restrained my mad impulses. 

243 




244 The Fangs of the Serpent 

“Just keep calm and collected. Don’t do anything 
foolish. Everything’s all right. We’ll be leaving 
directly. Come with us.” 

The district attorney had hurriedly closed the inquiry 
and sent the two mediums back to the matron. Here 
was an opportunity to be seized to get into this mystery 
at first hand. Racing out into the corridor, we 
struggled into our coats as we went. A huge car stood 
panting at the door. Into this Abe leaped; I was at 
his heels, and the district attorney with two officers 
followed. 

Even in the stress of my fear I could notice the other 
news-writers and sympathize with them. Men from 
every sheet had been at the inquiry and they were now 
scurrying about trying to secure cars to carry them to 
the house. It was not an affair that permitted of an 
excuse for their failing to get in on the story. They 
must get there. My close acquaintance with the case 
gave me the inside track. I was of use to the officers 
and they were playing the game fair; my assistance to 
them brought their aid to me. 

As the last policeman closed the door, the car gave 
a shiver and a snort; with a lurch it was hurled into 
high and bounded away down the avenue. Around 
corners it whirled, on two wheels or one; on the straight¬ 
away it seemed to lift above the ground so rapid was 
the pace. I scarce heeded it. What was the matter 
at the house? Isobel! I dared not think of all that 
might have happened; even at a hint I grew sick, quiver¬ 
ing, shaking, nauseated. 

The car sped on. No voice was raised. The very 
speed checked utterance. Yet if the others felt one 
tithe the agitation that swayed me, they could not have 


Stitmore Tithes Finds the Curari 245 

uttered a word had they tried. What a trip that was: 
already it seemed days since we had started; until we 
arrived, months. Yet my watch showed it had taken 
but a very few minutes. Abe called it a quick trip. 

The car stopped. We piled out, helter skelter, not 
standing on ceremony, and ran up the walk with more 
speed than dignity. Sullivan and I were in the lead. 
I have many years the better of the detective, and at 
his time of life years tell, yet I was not far ahead of 
him when we dashed up the steps. The district attorney 
was in the rear. Even haste could not wholly conquer 
his pride. 

The door opened to our advance; they were watch¬ 
ing for our coming. Tasker with his habitual reserve 
stood at one side, but his face was worn and haggard; 
his dark, wrinkled skin showed pale under the stress 
of his emotions. 

I needed to ask him no questions; as I hurried across 
the threshold and started down the hall, I caught 
sight of a tall, slender figure. In the sense of relief 
that swept over me, I grew faint and nearly collapsed. 
But the figure saw me, too, and in a moment the dear 
girl was in my arms, sobbing and holding me close as 
I strained her to my breast. 

“Larry, oh Larry, dear! You’ve come, you’ve come.” 

I comforted the poor girl as best I could; for the 
sight of her had eased my anguished fear. I soothed 
her as my heart bade me, for she was nearly hysterical 
with terror, and some other strong emotion swayed 
her. 

I led her into the library and together we sank down 
on a couch. I tried, but could get no information 
from her. Sullivan had stopped to quiz Tasker and, 


246 The Fangs of the Serpent 

his statement obtained, had gone on up the stairs. The 
two officers followed him. Just then the maid, Elsinore 
Trevecott, appeared to attend her mistress. From her 
I gained the facts I had not obtained from Isobel. 

“Oh, Mr. Bowen, it is terrible, terrible,” and her 
quiet voice was hoarse with feeling. “It is Mr. Stit- 
more Tithes. Tasker found him dead in the doorway 
of the museum.” 

Stitmore Tithes? Stitmore Tithes dead? I could 
not comprehend. But when I did there came a surge 
of feeling I could not suppress; joy welled up in my 
throat. I should have been ashamed, been sorry; but 
—I was not; I was glad—glad! Isobel was free! In 
an excess of emotion I forgot the maid and drew her 
close. 

The district attorney now came in, led by Tasker, 
and I told him what Elsinore Trevecott had told me. 

“We’ll go up,” I added. 

“No, no, Larry,” and Isobel sobbed on my shoulder. 
“Stay with me. Oh, promise me you’ll never go near 
that horrible room again. Swear you’ll never touch a 
thing in the museum. Larry, Larry, you are all I have 
left; please, dear, don’t leave me.” 

Cummings looked as though he wished to ask a 
question but refrained. He nodded at me to remain 
and followed Sullivan up the stairway. One of the 
officers went on guard at the front door; the other had 
already gone up. 

I gave my attention to quieting Isobel. She was 
driven nearly out of her mind. And no wonder; first 
her father, and now Stitmore Tithes, her affianced hus¬ 
band in a sense. Though she had not loved him, the 
very fact that he had gone to his death in the same 


Stitmore Tithes Finds the Curari 247 

room as her father, was a shock under which only the 
strongest women could have stood up. 

For all that I knew Tithes might have died a natural 
death; though there would have been small reason to 
call in the police were that the case. The maid, Elsi¬ 
nore, gave me what she knew in a little more detail 
as she busied herself about the room doing little things 
for Isobel. 

“Tasker went up the stairs just before eleven o’clock, 
and he caught sight of Mr. Tithes all in a heap on the 
top landing. Tasker went no farther, but hurried down 
as best he was able and told me. I telephoned right 
away to the police, where Mr. Sullivan might be, ask¬ 
ing him to come. If he came at once, might not he 
solve the question? Then Miss Isobel heard of it and 
I must try and get you; but I couldn’t.” 

No, for of course I was at the court. As she rambled 
on I learned that no one had dared go near him; they 
were waiting until the police came. Deltour, the 
chauffeur, was placed on guard on the stairs just below 
the body, to see that it was not moved or touched until 
the officers had arrived. 

I did not get the information concerning what was 
found at this first inspection from first hand. I stayed 
with Isobel, yet Abe told it to me that afternoon as we 
were going back down town; I can, therefore, speak of 
matters about as they developed. 

The body of Stitmore Tithes lay in the little hall 
at the head of the stairs, on the museum floor. Abe 
said that when he first saw him, judging from the posi¬ 
tion in which the body lay, he thought he had fallen 
forward; his head was at the top step and his feet 
in the doorway; there were strong indications that he 


248 The Fangs of the Serpent 

had not pitched forward violently, but had gently 
collapsed; his arms were doubled under him. 

His face was calm and peaceful; in fact, serene and 
happy looking. District Attorney Cummings, who 
knew him well, said that all the harshness, all the 
savage, relentless lines, and the tenacity of the bulldog 
chin, were smoothed away. He lay at rest and at peace. 

“What’s the matter?” asked Cummings, when he 
came up, as Sullivan was finishing his examination, 
“heart failure?” 

In reply, Sullivan lifted a limp arm and turned the 
wrist so that the inside met the eyes of the official. 
The district attorney whistled. There, in the firm, 
white flesh, were two tiny punctures. One was at almost 
the center of the wrist, the other at one side, nearly 
missing the arm entirely. It barely entered the muscle. 
Its course could be traced by a curved red line just 
beneath the skin, showing distinctly through the trans¬ 
parent membrane. It was curved along its full length! 
Like the mark made by a serpent’s fang! 

“I sent for Dr. Templeton,” Sullivan told Cum¬ 
mings. The surgeon had not been at the station when 
we left. The district attorney nodded his approval. 
“But I know what those marks are,” Abe continued; 
“Templeton will confirm my statement. The same im¬ 
plement that got old Oswald made these holes. It is 
another death from poison. Stitmore Tithes appears 
to have solved the mystery that baffles us. He has 
found the curari.” 

“Where’s the weapon?” Cummings asked. 

“Don’t know,” Abe replied. “It isn’t around him. 
It may be somewhere near, but we haven’t begun a 
search. I’m just going through his clothes.” 


Stitmore Tithes Finds the Curari 249 

The search was close, minute; the customary articles, 
a purse with a small sum, a watch, a fountain pen, a 
few other odds and ends and a large sealed envelope 
were taken from his pockets and spread out for the 
district attorney to study. But not an article that 
shed any light on this murder. 

The last thing Sullivan found was a small packet of 
letters tucked away in a pocket inside Tithes* shirt. 
On these being examined, they were found to be letters 
from a mistress of the dead attorney, whom he was 
maintaining in South Chicago. But they offered not 
one beam of light which might pierce the fog of this 
man’s death. 

These letters had all been opened, but there was 
another find that was sealed. Cummings took the long 
envelope into his hands, and stood regarding it as 
though in a quandary. As a question of legal right, 
doubtless it should have been carried sealed into court 
and opened only on the judge’s order. 

But this was an extraordinary occasion. Within 
this folded and gummed paper might lie a fact that 
would point to the murderer. He decided to take the 
responsibility of investigating the contents. Pushing 
a pencil beneath the flap, he rolled it toward the center 
and shortly bent this back, removing the folded paper 
he found inside. This was on a printed form and had 
an official look. The district attorney unfolded it, 
gave one glance and turning his head in Abe’s direction 
informed him that it had nothing to do with Tithes’ 
death. But he continued reading it with the closest 
attention for some time; and after refolding it and 
placing it in his pocket, he no longer gave his whole 
thought to the consideration of the latest happening 


250 The Fangs of the Serpent 

in the case; instead, he carried with him an air o 
preoccupation. 

The first thing Abe did after assuring himself that 
Tithes was dead, was to make a hurried search of the 
museum, on the chance that the murderer might be 
hiding there; and now, with Cummings at his side, he 
looked more closely. 

Yet nothing that showed a murderer had ever been 
present was discovered. The arrangement of the room 
was too open to permit of his concealment. Abe found 
every window fastened on the inside. Whoever com¬ 
mitted the crime had escaped down the stairway and 
taken the weapon with him; no other avenue to safety 
lay open. 

One circumstance worked against the police. The 
museum had been kept sealed for some weeks after the 
inquest on Mr. Oswald’s death, but after that time it 
was felt that every possibility of the room had been 
exhausted, and it was turned over to the care of the 
house servants. Consequently it was swept and dusted 
every day. Had the police kept it locked, there would 
now have been a layer of fine particles that might have 
told the full story. Yet, had it remained closed, Dr. 
Herron and I would have been barred and the letters 
to Mr. Oswald would still be hidden. 

Dr. Templeton, on his arrival, confirmed Abe’s diag¬ 
nosis; death had resulted from curari administered 
through the wrist. Tithes had been dead about an 
hour and a half, he affirmed. This meant that the 
attorney had been killed only about fifteen minutes 
w r hen found, for we were on the scene within thirty 
minutes of the call. 

What had led Tithes to make the trip to the museum? 


Stitmore Tithes Finds the Curari 251 

What was he after? Had he entered the room, or had 
he been struck down as soon as he reached the fourth 
floor? And where was the weapon? 

This last question was propounded to Sullivan by 
the district attorney. 

“I don’t believe it is here,” Abe replied. “It went 
down with the murderer, and when we get him, we’ll 
have the tool with the two points. It certainly isn’t 
in any easily found place in this museum. There re¬ 
mains one possible chance; it may be under the body.” 

They returned to the form of Tithes and the attorney 
asked, 

“Has the coroner been notified?” 

Sullivan assured him that such was the case. 

“Then lift him up. He must be moved anyway. 
Take him to the lower floor.” 

Abe and the patrolman lifted the form, carefully 
watching to see that no implement lay beneath; the 
body concealed nothing. 

“I suppose it is up to me to make the same old 
search,” Sullivan remarked to Cummings as they were 
returning to the upper floor. “I’ve been over it several 
times and so has Larry and Dr. Herron, and all we 
got were those letters, and they had no connection with 
the killing.” 

Marsh’s story had dissociated his communications 
from connection with the death of Mr. Oswald. This 
left but two known suspects, Tithes himself, whom Abe 
had been quietly investigating, and Deborah. 

“Let me tell you, whoever did these two to death is 
a slick one.” They were back in the museum search¬ 
ing for new light. “He comes up, sticks the curari 
into Oswald, and escapes without leaving a trace. Now 


252 The Fangs of the Serpent 

Tithes gets the same dose; again the murderer calmly 
walks off.” 

Cummings and Dr. Templeton listened attentively. 
Abe was reasoning aloud, and so far had voiced only 
undisputed facts. The detective went on. 

“Tithes has just been killed. The same weapon is 
used; don’t forget that. I measured the holes in 
Oswald’s wrist; just an inch and a half apart. The 
distance between the punctures in Tithes arm is the 
same, one and one-half inches. Tithes was suspected 
of having had a hand in the killing of Oswald; he had 
a motive and might have had an opportunity; maybe 
he did do it. And this might be suicide. But if so, 
where is the weapon? How could he dispose of it 
before death overtook him, so that we can’t find it. 
No, I don’t think it can be suicide. Another thing; 
he hasn’t been dead long.” 

There was no escaping this latter fact. The mem¬ 
bers of the little group might disagree over the possi¬ 
bility of suicide, but Stitmore Tithes had not been dead 
over two hours. With this in mind, Abe enforced the 
other objection. 

“Those mediums are also under suspicion of being 
concerned in the death of Oswald. T-he old lady tells 
a good story, but I’m not yet convinced that they 
did not have a guilty knowledge concerning the mur¬ 
der. But we had them under cover last night and this 
morning. Just as certainly they could not have been 
in court this morning answering questions and still be 
here killing Tithes. A medium may be a peach at her 
business, but I never yet heard of one that claimed to 
be able, physically, to be in two places at the same 
time. If they had nothing to do with this death, and 


Stitmore Tithes Finds the Curari 253 

they couldn’t have, then the chances are greatly in¬ 
creased that they had nothing to do with the other, 
either.” 

“Might not the girl have prepared the engine of 
death?” asked the district attorney. “Remember, she 
spent some hours of last night in this building and also, 
probably all day yesterday and the night before that. 
That was what worried her mother, and brought her 
out. The girl had plenty of time.” 

“But if she got out of the trap to do it, what’d she 
get back in for? But forget that. Suppose she did, 
where’s the machine ?” Abe knew he had asked a poser. 
“Show me; that is all I ask.” He shrugged his 
shoulders. 

“How about this then?” and Cummings looked fix¬ 
edly at Abe. “The girl was found in a flue in the 
chimney ?” 

Abe nodded. 

“May not that same opening extend to this floor? 
There—” 

Sullivan gave a start and without waiting for the 
district attorney to finish, started for the south wall 
of the museum. 

“Lord, yes,” he threw back over his shoulder, “how’d 
I come to miss that bet?” 

He found the inside surfaces smooth and unbroken, 
nor was there any evidence, internally, that the chimney 
lay just beyond. Its exact position was determined 
by an inspection through a window, opened for the 
purpose, which gave the location of the flue. An ex¬ 
amination made of every square inch of this area and 
adjoining sections revealed no evidence that the walls 
had ever been disturbed. 


254 The Fangs of the Serpent 

“I’m going down to the basement,” Abe told the 
other two. “You remain here. If I work up this high, 
I’ll rap if I fail to find an opening.” He started down, 
stopping on the way for me. Isobel was feeling much 
relieved, but still she did not want me to go. Sullivan 
insisted; the two officers were busy and he needed some¬ 
one with him on whom he could depend. 

As we went down the hall I heard my brothers of the 
pen at the front door. They were trying to gain a 
knowledge of what was going on from the officer and 
from Tasker. Abe must have left orders to keep them 
out, for they did not get in, though I know that, later, 
he gave them what facts he had. 

We found the door and bar to the chimney just as 
we had left them. I tried to make out the entrance 
but failed to see it until Sullivan swung it out. He 
flashed his torch inside, then upward; nothing. He 
entered and began the climb. 

In a few seconds I heard him calling. The steps 
had reached the first floor and there ceased. How 
could anyone get any higher? By a rope possibly, but 
there was nothing above that it could be fastened to, 
he said. 

“Larryhe remarked as he descended and stepped 
out of the stack, “no one ever got higher than that 
first floor. The murderer never got to the museum 
through this entrance.” 

We ascended to the museum floor. As we reached 
the room Dr. Templeton was discoursing on the effects 
of the curari. 

“No,” he was saying, evidently in reply to some 
question of Cummings, “I cannot grant that; Mr. 
Oswald might have died where struck, or he might have 


Stitmore Tithes Fines the Curari 255 

taken a few steps. Stitmore Tithes was a much 
younger and somewhat more active man. He was but 
little over forty-five years old, as I happen to know. 
Should the amount of curari injected have been pre¬ 
cisely the same for him as for Oswald, he might have 
lived long enough to walk some distance, say fifteen or 
twenty steps, before the paralysis became absolute.” 

Sullivan reported to the attorney. There was some 
discussion, which brought up the letters Herron had 
found in the chest. I told how they had been concealed; 
Abe and I turned it bottom up and I demonstrated how 
the compartment opened. They asked many questions. 
We reversed the case. 

I explained Dr. Herron’s hypothesis, that the box 
was an old treasure-chest, and had a weapon concealed 
in the lid, the idea we had been compelled to abandon. 

“You’ll notice when I open it, that the top is too 
thin to conceal any such complicated mechanism,” and 
I operated the catch two or three times to show how 
it worked. They peered into the interior and with their 
fingers, calipered the upper part and the sides as well. 
Abe stood by in a dejected mood. Things which had 
promised so well, were getting beyond him. Here we 
were, after months of investigation, back at the be¬ 
ginning with another murder on our hands. 

“That chest? There’s nothing in that idea,” Abe 
snarled, as he leaned against a neighboring case, with 
head hunched between his shoulders. “But if I had an 
ax I’d knock the old thing to pieces; I’d go for that 
partition, I’d rip it out; I’d smash every object in this 
room, and then you’d all agree with what I know to 
be a fact, that the weapon with two points is not within 
these walls. But,” and he sighed deeply, shaking his 


256 


The Fangs of the Serpent 


head, “I can’t do it. Things too old and valuable. 
Not to be injured.” 

Shortly after this he began to post the men who had 
come with him and the two who had accompanied the 
coroner; they were given positions about the house and 
one was placed in the museum. I ran down to bid 
Isobel good-bye. She was still in a nervous state. 

I tried to persuade her to go to some friend’s home 
for a few days. She half consented, then said she 
simply could not. I promised to spend as much time 
as I could for the next few days in her company. 

Abe and I walked away together. Where before he 
had been brusque and hurried, now he took a slow, 
deliberate gait. 

“Larry,” he remarked after we had gone several 
blocks, “do you recognize one very peculiar circum¬ 
stance connected with both these cases ?” 

64 Yes,” I replied, “not one, but several. What one 
in particular, struck you?” 

44 Do you realize that neither victim made any 
struggle or any outcry when attacked?” 

“That’s so,” I acquiesced, after considering for a 
moment. 

“That means one of two things. The blow was 
delivered so quickly, so unexpectedly, that they had 
not time to make an effort to defend themselves; 


“Yes, yes,” I insisted, as he paused, “what is the 
other alternative?” 

He looked at me pityingly and puckered his brows 
as though undecided. Then he spoke. 

“It means—that the one striking the blow was well 
known, was well-beloved of them both.” 



CHAPTER XVIII. 


A FIND. 

S OMEONE near and dear to them!” I could not 
pretend to misunderstand. Abe’s meaning was as 
plain as if he spoke her name. But to believe it— 
never, never! It was not true! 

After hungering down the years for a love like mine 
and at last finding my soul’s Golconda, only to have 
Abe hint that it could not last, that I must lose it. It 
was unbearable. 

Never, never! Isobel was mine, I was hers. I knew 
her better than anyone ; I had fathomed the depths of 
her love and through that love had been revealed to 
me the wonders of her woman’s soul. She commit such 
a crime? Impossible? It were farcical even to hint 
at it. Isobel Oswald, and I knew it even as I knew I 
myself was not guilty, was untarnished even in thought 
of such a thing. Whoever did the deed it was not she. 

Oh, if Abe could only reason? If he began to watch 
her—well, I must dig down to the very roots of this 
thing and find the guilty man. And who was he? He 
must be some unknown who slipped in and out, doing 
the deed in a manner prepared. Perhaps it had just 
chanced that both were found on the museum floor, 
Tithes on the landing, Mr. Oswald near the tapestry. 

I took my stuff down to the office that afternoon and 
did not go down that night. From now on I felt that 

257 


258 The Fangs of the Serpent 

I had enough to do, following the case as it unfolded, 
and digging away at the facts. There was much that 
I could do, for I had been on the inside from the very 
beginning. 

When the papers came out, the News was almost 
the only sheet that had a good word to say for the 
police department. Here was a tremendous situation 
from the news and editorial standpoints. A very 
wealthy man is killed; months pass, his murderer is 
still at large, the mystery of his death unsolved. Then 
in the same house, in the same room, in a manner 
identical with the first, a second death occurs. What, 
wailed the press, is the use of keeping thousands of men 
in a department and spending millions on them, when 
they not only fail to solve the first mystery, but a 
second crime is committed right under their noses. 

I passed a bad night. The thought of Isobel, and 
the seed of distrust Abe had planted, kept me tossing 
about for hours. She couldn't be guilty; it was un¬ 
thinkable even to consider her in connection with such 
a crime. How I yearned to have her in my arms; to 
hear her dear voice with its melody of tenderness, tell¬ 
ing the love that watered my thirsty heart. Question 
her about the deaths, hint—never, nor should Abe; not 
for a moment would I think it. 

I rolled and writhed, and fretted and fumed, for I 
could not sleep. Again and again I went over all that 
we knew about the case; and the more I considered it, 
the more I reached a certain conclusion; the secret of 
those deaths was to be found on the fourth floor of that 
house. As I dropped into a doze just before morning, 
I decided that I would go back there again and search 


A Find 259 

and search through the museum, never giving up until 
I found that secret. 

Early next morning I got in touch with Sullivan. 
His voice, as it came over the wire, was surcharged with 
woe. 

“Seen the papers this morning?” he groaned. “No¬ 
tice the nice things— not —they are saying about us? 
Fierce, I’ll say it is. But the papers aren’t so bad; 
the Chief had me in for a talk. Yea—he did the talk¬ 
ing. I’ve got to get somebody in this case, and blamed 
quick, too. You want to volunteer? To save my face 
I may have to frame you.” 

“Why not let me help? I’ve been figuring on a new 
angle in the problem, and I’ve come to a conclusion,” 
and I explained what I thought, and what I wanted 
to do. 

“Go ahead, go ahead,” his voice came heartily over 
the wire. “Wish I could work with you, but I can’t 
just now. I’ll send down word to the boys to give 
you every assistance. You’ll have the run of the 
museum and any other part of the house without any 
interference from them. Oh, lordy, lordy, in my present 
position I’m grasping at every straw. Are you a straw? 
W r ell, draw on your luck and tumble into something 
that will help us out. We’re going on with the ex¬ 
amination of the mediums this morning and I’ve got to 
be there. So long.” 

Sullivan hung up. 

I went down to the Oswald home, reaching there at 
nine-thirty. Tasker admitted me and took me in to 
Isobel. I spent some time discussing the situation with 
her. But I did not tell her of my contemplated plans. 
I judged it better not to do so. 


260 The Fangs of the Serpent 

When I finally reached the fourth floor, the officer 
stationed there had received his orders. He admitted 
me without question. As I entered he remarked that 
I was quite as good a guard as he and that he would 
run out for lunch. 

What I intended to do, I hardly knew. Should I 
ransack the whole place or should I search for a secret 
passage? I was inclined to the latter, for, taking it 
all in all, there was only one hypothesis left that would 
fit the case. 

The weapon that killed both Mr. Oswald and Stit- 
more Tithes had not been found in the museum; if it 
were not there, it must have been carried away. Car¬ 
ried by what means? Human probably. In what 
manner? Certainty not down the stairway; that was 
unthinkable. The only other mode of egress from the 
fourth story was the windows; they were all locked on 
the inside; therefore, a secret passage was the only 
explanation of the means whereby the murderous tool 
could have left that floor. 

What, I said to myself, are you already crawfishing 
from your determination of last night? It certainty 
looked like it. Anyway the atmosphere of the place 
was depressing. But no, I’d still hold to the belief 
that the secret of the deaths would be found here in 
the museum. 

I decided that the first thing I’d do would be 
thoroughly to examine every wall and every window, 
then the ceiling and lastly the floor. But I had little 
more than begun when Elsinore came up to call me. 
Isobel wanted to see me in her morning-room. I forgot 
that I was to remain on guard, and went down with the 
maid. 


A Find 


261 


“Oh, Larry,” she cried as I entered, “why will you 
go to that horrible room? I am so afraid something 
will happen to you. Oh, why cannot someone discover 
what hangs over this house? It is so terrible!” I sat 
down beside her. 

“But, dear,” I reasoned with her, “unless I do go 
there and study the situation, how am I going to find 
out what it is that has cast this mantle of mystery 
over your home? There is a cause for it, and we are 
going to find it, too. We surely will; look what a lot 
of things we have cleared up, even Deborah.” 

“And that is terrible, too.” The dear girl was 
greatly perturbed. She had heard of June Davis’s 
capture in the flue in the basement, and of the robe, so 
she knew that June had impersonated Deborah. “Just 
to think that father and I were so gullible. It was as 
real as could be; why, I can hardly believe even now 
that she did not get her information from the other 
world. How could she know so many things, things 
we had forgotten, things we never knew?” 

The fact that the whole world, through the accounts 
being run in the press, knew how cleverly they had been 
taken in, would make her still more sensitive when it 
came to her knowledge. For the death of Tithes and 
the consequent excitement had crowded the story off 
the front page, and I doubted if Isobel had seen a paper 
at all. But when she did, and learned that Deborah— 
June Davis—was her sister-? 

Was it the sturdy strength of will inherited from her 
father that made her so strong in her hour of trouble? 
Or had her father’s age accustomed her subconsciously 
to the idea of his death at any moment, so that his 
death while sudden, could be borne? Tithes? She 



262 The Fangs of the Serpent 

had never loved him; it had been an engagement of 
convenience and his untimely end had shocked, but not 
greatly affected her. 

“But what I wanted to see you about,” she explained, 
“is this: Father’s secretary, Mars, has been search¬ 
ing the files of correspondence hoping that a trace of 
the poison may be uncovered. He just telephoned that 
there is a letter that may throw some light on it; he 
asked if he should bring it down or not, or would I 
send someone for it. Don’t you think we should secure 
it? It may be worthless; so much we have found has 
proved so; and then it may be of great value. Will 
you run up and get it ?” 

Certainly I would go; there was a chance that it 
might give us the key. And when the murderer was 
found wouldn’t I lay into Abe for daring to hint— 
even hint—that “one well known and beloved by both” 
Mr. Oswald and Stitmore Tithes, might be guilty. I 
was in a fever of impatience to get facts that would 
show Sullivan that I had something besides faith to 
back up my belief in her innocence. 

“Deltour can take you,” and she rang for Tasker, 
when he came instructing him to have the car sent 
round at once. “One thing more, Larry. This very 
afternoon I am issuing an offer of a reward, and it will 
be large enough to bring information from anyone who 
has it. No matter what the cost, up to the very last 
cent I possess or may hope to possess, all shall go if 
necessary in the bringing to justice of him who killed 
my father and Mr. Tithes.” 

How I wished Abe might have heard her! What 
could he have said at an offer of her fortune to find 
the murderer? Where now would be “a motive”? She 


A Find 


263 


could not possibly have had one. And then, how pre¬ 
posterous to think of a guilty person offering a vast 
amount to convict—herself! What utter nonsense was 
Abe’s vague theorizing in regard to Isobel. 

The officer on guard returned from lunch just then 
and I was free to attend to the commission. 

“Oh, Larry, Larry, please be careful of yourself,” 
and she clung to me as she kissed me good-by. “And 
please do not go near that hideous room again. I just 
know that any one there is in danger every moment. 
Father would have those terrible weapons and every¬ 
thing.” 

A great wave of happiness flooded my soul; to think 
that she cared for me—cared like that, that her love 
put my safety first in her thoughts. Oh, those long, 
long, lonely, unloved years of mine! But they were 
worth all the heartaches when they brought such joys 
as this! 

The car was at the door; I jumped in, and we were 
away. I settled back on the cushions in a rosy dream, 
which slowly, imperceptibly dissolved into a considera¬ 
tion of the case. We sped rapidly toward the city and 
it was not until we were over half way that a peculiar 
thought popped into my mind. 

Why had Isobel thought it so necessary to send 
some one after the letter? Mars would have come had 
she suggested it. But why was she sending me? Why 
would not Henry, here, have done as well? Was it 
because she wanted me out of the museum? that she 
feared something there? But no—no; foolish fancies 
of mine, the reaction, perhaps, from my intense happi¬ 
ness. How dare I doubt, even for a moment, the dear 
girl with the feel of her arms still about my neck! 


264 The Fangs of the Serpent 

As I stepped out at the curb and hastened up the 
steps, I was filled with a great hope: If the secretary 
really had found some hint! He was expecting me as 
Isobel had sent word by phone, and placed a chair 
for me beside the great table in the center of the room. 
I declared that I would not remove my overcoat as I’d 
be there too short a time. What had he found? 

He turned to his desk, picked up a letter lying there, 
and placed it before me. 

“Read it,” he said. 

The letter was plainly addressed to Mr. Oswald; it 
bore a date nearly two years previous; the letter-head 
was that of an inn in Cuzco; presumably the letter had 
been written and mailed from there, though the enve¬ 
lope had not been preserved. The subject matter of 
the communication treated of objects collected in 
Bolivia and Peru. 

There were but two sheets, both in the handwriting of 
some agent of Mr. Oswald; turning to the second page, 
I noted the boldly written “James Orth.” I looked up 
at the secretary standing by the opposite side of the 
table. 

“This James Orth,” I inquired, referring to the 
signature. 

“Has been Mr. Oswald’s agent in western South 
America for the last ten years,” he concluded my 
unfinished question. I resumed the reading. 

The first part dwelt largely with this agent’s move¬ 
ments, the costs of travel, and odd items of informa¬ 
tion, followed by descriptions of the articles he had 
secured. There was nothing sensational in these 
descriptions of Inca and pre-Inca relics and speci¬ 
mens. But when I reached the last page I understood 


A Find 


265 


why Mars deemed it of moment. After again referring 
to a trip along the Urabamba River, mentioned in the 
story of his movements, Orth continued. 

“On this trip I had gathered the fine articles just 
described, when an Indian came into camp one night 
and offered to sell a large box. From his description I 
doubted its value, but on his insistence I visited his 
humble home. I found the box a real treasure and 
bought it. When I attempted to get its history, the 
seller was very reticent; but after patient questioning, 
I found that he feared to tell me, thinking that if I 
knew all its history I might turn it back to him. When 
fully assured that I retained my purchases, he gave me 
this information. 

“ ‘Senor,’ he told me confidentially, ‘the chest is one 
great evil. Not for the Big Fish (referring to the 
wealth buried, according to legend, by the Incas to 
keep it out of Spanish hands) will I have it again in 
my house/ 

“He, Jesus Quintanilla, on a hunting expedition in 
the mountains near Urabamba village, chanced upon a 
cavern. In it was this chest surrounded by many 
bones. One skeleton on a raised platform to one side 
of the cavern seemed to have been a person of impor¬ 
tance. I have since visited the place and as the bones 
were little disturbed can state more definitely their 
disposition. 

“The bony framework on the shelf undoubtedly was 
of some one high in Inca service. From the skull its 
owner was an Indian. About the place where the box 
had stood, I counted seven skulls, and enough other 
bones to make seven complete skeletons. In the rear 
of the cave was an eighth; the owner of these bones had 


266 The Fangs of the Serpent 

been a white man. Of the seven, some at least appeared 
to have been modern Indians, fragments of their gar¬ 
ments being found with their bones. 

“Quintanilla took the box home. He had opened it 
in the cavern and found it empty; but to him, the chest 
itself had a value that was considerable. He had it 
about home for two or three weeks, many of his neigh¬ 
bors coming in to inspect it. Then, one afternoon, 
when he went into the shed where it stood, he found his 
eldest daughter lying dead. They buried her. Three 
months later, on getting up one morning, a stranger 
was discovered stretched out just outside the door of 
the room that held the box. He, too, was dead. It 
was a full year later that Quintanilla sent his wife into 
this room for some beer; he heard her scream and when 
he reached her she lay between the chest and the beer 
cask; she was dying. Within the next three years two 
more persons were found dead in that room. 

“Granted the truth of the story, it is rather odd that 
so many should have died near this box. But the con¬ 
nection Quintanilla implied existed between it and the 
deaths is probably non-existent. The chest is a unique 
specimen. If of Inca workmanship, it is entirely dif¬ 
ferent from any I have seen. You will appreciate this 
w«hen you examine it.” 

After describing a few more articles, the letter 
closed. As I finished, I looked up at the secretary. 
He was deeply interested in whatever opinion I might 
voice. 

“A most interesting description, and history,” I told 
him, “but I am sure that Mr. Orth was right in his 
judgment of the chest. A friend of mine, Dr. Cyrus 
Herron, held much the same views. We investigated, 


A Find 


267 


sounded and probed the box and found only a packet 
of letters addressed to Mr. Oswald, which he himself 
had concealed in a secret cavity he had made.” 

The secretary’s face fell. He extended his hand, but 
I shook my head. 

“With your permission, I’ll take this with me. Miss 
Oswald will want to see it.” 

It was agreeable to him, he replied. I returned to 
Isobel. I found her in the depths of melancholia; I 
tried to report on the letter, but her tears could not 
be checked long enough for me to tell of it. She needed 
comforting and I spent the rest of the afternoon in 
soothing her. Dinner we had served in her room. 

After the meal I persuaded her to lie down and when 
she had done so, I again climbed to the museum. I told 
the officer on guard to go out and get something to eat; 
I’d watch until he returned. 

When he left, I frankly confess, a chill settled in the 
region of my spine. And the more I stood and looked 
at this old chest, the more intense the chill became. 

Yet within fifteen minutes of my entrance to the 
room, I was standing with a sheaf of written documents 
in my hands. They were in Spanish, as I recognized, 
but unfortunately I am not familiar with that lan¬ 
guage. Before I could rightly judge of their value, I 
must secure a translation. 

There are night schools in Chicago where Spanish is 
taught and when the man on guard returned I was 
soon on my way to one of these. I said nothing to 
any one about my discovery; it, too, might be another 
false alarm. 

At the school, when I told them that I wished a 
Spanish document translated, they requested me to 


268 


The Fangs of the Serpent 

leave it. This I refused to do. These sheets might in 
truth be of no importance, as far as discovering 
who killed Mr. Oswald and Tithes, but until I knew 
definitely, they should not leave my possession. 

Finally they sent me in to a thin-faced elderly man, 
who was their Spanish teacher. I told him what I 
wanted and handed him the first sheet. He took it,, 
looked it over intently, and then gazed up at me over 
the rims of his eyeglasses. In an interested tone he 
remarked: 

“This is indeed unusual. I have never seen any¬ 
thing like it. It must be very old; the Spanish here 
employed is archaic.” 

“Never mind that,” I objected. “Just go ahead and 
translate it.” I was getting nervous. 

“What about a copy? Do you wish one,” he in¬ 
quired, before making a start. 

That was so. I did. I looked at the sheets I held. 
They were few; whatever the narrative they contained, 
it was of no great length. 

“No use in bringing in a third person,” I told him. 
“Translate slowly and I’ll jot it down in longhand.” 
If I found it important, I could see that he spoke 
slowly enough so that I could put down every word. If 
it was unpromising, then it mattered little whether I 
got it all or not. 

He began. It did not, in its opening, lead me to 
expect anything of value. But as the reading went on, 
I guessed the truth and my hair began to rise. When 
he was done, fear had laid hold of my heartstrings. 
Larry Bowen, I told myself, it is only by the grace of 
God that you are alive this night. Of all the chances 


A Find 269 

you have taken! For I knew that now I held the true 
key to the two deaths. 

The Spanish scholar recognized no connection be¬ 
tween the message he had translated and the Oswald 
murder case. When he had done, I paid his fee, gath¬ 
ered up the sheets and my translation of them, and 
hurried out. 

What to do ? That was my problem. Should I hunt 
down Sullivan and read it to him? Even if I did, I’d 
have to read it again to the district attorney and to 
the coroner, and any number of others. I decided that 
it would be better to assemble those interested and 
place the message before them. 

That must be done at once, the very next morning. 
For on the afternoon of that day, Tithes was to be 
buried. If I waited, it would have to go over for two 
days, at least, and I felt no inclination to hold off so 
important a communication that length of time. 

The place in which it was most convenient to hold 
the meeting was the museum. As this was the scene of 
the crimes, it would be best. I stopped at a toll sta¬ 
tion, and after some difficulty got Isobel on the line. 
I told her that I had made a discovery which would 
clear up the mystery of her father’s death, and that 
I’d like to call together all those interested the follow¬ 
ing morning, as early as convenient, in the museum; 
would she permit me to do so? 

She was more than willing and at the prospect that 
the load of worry and anxiety oppressing her would be 
lifted from her shoulders, her voice took on a tone of 
cheerfulness, the first with which it had been charged 
since the death of Tithes. Abe, the coroner, Cum- 


270 


The Fangs of the Serpent 


mings, and the others who had a right to be present, I 
summoned by phone, or had a message left for them 
if they were out. I then caught a car and went back to 
my rooms and to bed. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


“the fangs of the serpent.” 

B Y eight o’clock the next morning we were gather¬ 
ing in the museum. Our number was not great. 
While, literally, thousands were interested in the cause 
of the death of J. Marion Oswald, and while thousands 
of others were curious concerning the passing of Stit- 
more Tithes, few there were who were close enough to 
the case, either officially or through relationship to 
either of the deceased, to be entitled to be present at 
this time. 

Isobel went up to the fourth floor on my arm, scout¬ 
ing all hints and requests on my part that she remain 
away and let me tell her about it afterward. As we 
passed the landing on which the lawyer’s body had been 
found—could it have been but day before yesterday?— 
she quivered and drew more closely to me. This was 
the only nervousness or agitation she exhibited. Erect 
and with immobile countenance she entered the room 
where her father had died, her mien not incomparable 
to that we associate, however wrongfully, with royalty. 
A sufficiency of chairs had been provided by the serv¬ 
ants and were arranged just north of the Hopi snake 
dance group, facing the chest as I had requested. 
Isobel chose a seat in the second row. 

Just behind her were the two maids, Elsinore Treve- 
cott and Annie O’Regan. I looked with curiosity at 
271 


272 The Fangs of the Serpent 

the latter; never would I have suspected her of being 
the daughter of Mrs. Michael O’Regan, the medium 
known as Madame Giovanetti Blatavaratsky. The 
firm, strong lines I had noted in the mother’s face, I 
failed to find reproduced in the daughter’s. 

Tasker, too, was in attendance. He looked older; 
deaths, such as these, weigh heavily on old people. 
Abe Sullivan I saw talking to the officer on guard; as 
we entered he left the man and come over to where I 
stood beside Isobel; he asked no questions. 

I had likewise notified the coroner and he was 
present. There were also two men representing the 
various Oswald interests, and two legal gentlemen from 
the Tithes’ side of the inquiry. Drs. Templeton and 
Thompson, with Reacon Mars and the chemist, James 
Haslette, completed the company with the exception 
of one group. 

District Attorney Cummings had brought with him 
June Davis and Mrs. O’Regan. I was startled when I 
saw them present and started to call Isobel’s attention 
to these ladies, then thought better of it. She recog¬ 
nized neither. They were quietly and tastefully 
dressed. June no longer wore the heavy black veil I 
had noted at the father’s funeral. She met the curious 
eyes turned her way with a modesty and steadfastness 
that excited my admiration. After all, who has a 
better right to be present at an inquiry into a father’s 
death than his daughter. I wondered if the two were 
still technically under arrest. Perhaps there was some 
other motive which induced Cummings to bring them 
himself. At a guess, I felt that he might not be at all 
sure that my solution of the mystery would prove cor- 


“The Fangs of the Serpent” 273 

rect and if not—well, it would be a stroke of genius to 
have some one present to accuse of the murder. 

Isobel and I had been the last to arrive. We had 
waited until assured by Tasker that all expected were 
present. I did not delay in presenting my discovery. 

It was but a few minutes after eight when I began. 
Taking a stand in front of the old chest, I addressed 
the assemblage without preliminary discussion. 

“Through at bit of good fortune, I believe that I 
hold the key that will unlock the mystery of the deaths 
of Mr. Oswald and Mr. Tithes. I haven’t as yet tried 
this key. This action I have reserved for your pres¬ 
ence. Yet so firmly do I hold that the solution I will 
offer is the correct one that I am willing to run the 
risk of a public failure.” 

I took the discolored sheets from my pocket; then 
the translation. 

“This is the key,” I remarked, holding up the sheets 
that all might see the few aged pages. No one said a 
word. Abe drummed heavily on the arm of his chair. 
Isobel, I thought, looked disappointed. I continued. 

“It must seem strange to you that pages as old as 
these are—and they were written four hundred years 
ago— can have any connection with, and explain the 
death of a man as vitally modern and up-to-date as 
J. Marion Oswald. Yet it is an odd circumstance that 
a man, writing shortly after the discovery of America, 
can offer the correct explanation of how two men came 
to die in this room. First, as to where I found the 
papers. Notice how thin is this chest. The lid,—and 
the sides and bottom are the same,—do not exceed in 
any appreciable amount, two inches in thickness. Ex¬ 
amine this point,” and I touched a section of the edge 


274s The Fangs of the Serpent 

of the lid four inches to the right of the hasp. “This 
small section of copper band is movable,” and with a 
lift of the hand I slipped it up, and pointed to a narrow 
crevice between the boards. 

“In this slit, which I stumbled upon,”—I might tell 
them where but had no intention of telling “how” unless 
necessity compelled—“were hidden these pages of manu¬ 
script. The message they contain is printed with a 
brush upon this ‘paper,’ which is not paper but a 
closely woven fabric. The message is of no great 
length. It is written in Spanish. As I am unac¬ 
quainted with the language, I had a translation made, 
which with your permission I shall read to you.” 

Those present sat in silence, somewhat puzzled, to 
judge from their expressions. Yet once I began to 
read there were no interruptions until the end. 

“I, Gonzalo Corcantera,” I read, “write this mes¬ 
sage. I call down the vengeance of Heaven upon the 
heretics and unbelievers who have made me, a follower 
of the True God, the slave to their king. May the 
Blessed Virgin pardon my sins and strike dead these, 
mine enemies. To him into whose hands this writing 
may fall, I commend the taking of this kingdom. It 
is rich in gold and jewels. Sell the people into slavery; 
they are fit for naught else. 

“It may be that I shall be dead when this is read. 
If so, beware of this the chest of the Serpent. Cast it 
into the sea without opening. But may it please God 
in His Omnipotence that aid comes while I live. If not, 
I have caused a saying to circulate among these people. 
This any man of my race will understand; it will guide 
him to this letter. 

“I was born among the mountains of Castile nigh 


“The Fangs of the Serpent” 275 

unto Avila. By trade I am a metal worker and cabinet 
maker. I was yet a young man when word came to 
our city of the new way to the Indies found by the 
Italian, Christoforo, and of the great wealth that came 
to all who ventured. I was not moved. Not until 
years had flown and I saw the flood of gold that came 
into the land from the sacking of the great cities of 
the barbarians, was I minded to try my fortune. 

“In the year of Our Lord, 1516, I betook myself to 
the south. At Cadiz I joined myself to the expedition 
of Anton de Vargas. We sailed within a week, seven 
great ships. After three weeks of western going, a 
great storm arose. Our vessel was blown far to the 
south. We found much ice and great cold. Nor could 
our captain tell where we were. 

“We sailed north and found another storm. This 
blew us to the east and we saw a high coast where there 
should be no land. The waves and the wind abated not. 
We were driven against the rocks. The vessel broke 
like an eggshell. Some were crushed by the timbers. 
Others were hurled into the sea. I alone came to shore, 
living. 

“A large group of the men of the country seized me. 
They were well-armed. We fared along the coast to a 
large town of many dwellings. In the tongue of these 
unbelievers it is Tumbrez. 

“Here rested their great king, Huayna Capac. He 
had but returned from a successful war in the north. 
To him the men led me. He caused me to be taken 
before his vast army. Here he declared that I was his 
slave and attached to his court. 

“For a year I have been his servant in all things. I 
have been constrained to perform tasks ill befitting one 


276 The Fangs of the Serpent 

of the race of Castile. Shortly he did find that I had 
skill in metal handling. He made me a worker in 
copper and bronze for his court. 

“He talks much with me concerning the men of my 
race. Of late, runners have come out of the north. 
They bear tales of the wonderful deeds done in the 
heathen cities by the soldiers and servants of His Most 
Worshipful Majesty, King Ferdinand. Now the king 
holds a great fear of all men of our race. He says that 
we who carry the True Cross are thieves and murderers, 
that we would rob him of his nation, that all we care 
for is gold. 

“Thus do I see that he distrusts me. My death may 
come shortly, when it suits his pleasure that I be stoned. 
Yet I die revenged. I have planned well. By my hand 
shall he die, even after I am dead. But he is tricky and 
fearful of me. Trickery I must meet with greater 
trickery or will he escape. 

“Because of my wisdom and skill, he did call me 
‘The Serpent,’ saying that I was wise in the devious 
ways of crawling things. As he called me ‘The Ser¬ 
pent,’ so be it. It shall be the Fangs of the Serpent 
that shall reach upward from the grave and smite him. 

“For him I have made a chest, of wood and copper 
and bronze, even this wherein I hide this message. In 
this have I wrought many of the cunning devices known 
to the artisans of Castile. These they build into the 
treasure-chests of wealthy Castilian merchants. 

“Yet the king is cunning. No simple trap may I 
set. I may not make the chest to kill each time. Never 
will he be caught with so simple a device. Many times 
must this box work safely. Yet at another time must 
it kill with certainty. Though many may die ere it 


“The Fangs of the Serpent’* 277 

reach him, just so certainly as it is safe many times, 
so the hour shall come when he shall touch it and, in 
that touching, die. 

“In front of this chest, beside the lock, I have made 
a cunning machine. This does operate as the lid is 
raised. When this is lifted, a rod with two teeth of 
bronze, fashioned like unto those of a serpent, darts 
forth. That he who is to die may be where the fangs 
can touch him, I placed the locks and the hasps in such 
wise that he who would open the chest must pull 
strongly up on the upper hasp while pushing with 
force on the lower lock. When the lid rises, the Fangs 
of the Serpent strike and bury themselves in him who 
is at the chest. 

“I make these fangs with no safety catch. Were it 
set by me, then the chest would be harmless with no one 
by to set it for the king. Nor might it be left to act 
every time. It might chance that a slave would open 
it in his presence and in that opening die. Sees the 
king the working of the fangs and my revenge is lost. 

“Therefore I devised a cunning wheel which does 
turn each time the lid is raised. When this has been 
lifted twenty-six times, the fangs are set to operate 
when next it is raised. Then not again do they work 
until the wheel turns round once more. 

“Now an end is made to work on the chest. The 
fangs do operate most quickly. By these I have placed 
the gum that carries quick death. When they are 
drawn back into the recess, they rest against it. Each 
time they dart forth, they carry a load of poison. 
They return to their nest but to have it renewed. He 
whom they touch dies at once. 

“I am done. Into the hands of the Virgin, I com- 


278 The Fangs of the Serpent 

mend myself. As it please the Great God, so goes my 
life. As it please him to answer my prayers, so shall 
the king, Huayna Capac, come to his death by my 
hands. 

“To him who finds this message I pray, Peace be 
with you. Unto my wife who is in Villatoro, send 
information of me. My most earnest prayers are that 
you seize this land. Take its wealth and its heretical 
people. Burn them with fire, scourge them, rack them, 
that the True Faith may prevail in the land. When 
the last one is dead or a slave, then shall my prayers 
have been answered. My great wrongs shall be re¬ 
venged. The Fangs of the Serpent rest, ready for 
vengeance. (Signed) 

“Gonzalo Corcantera, The Serpent.” 

A most lovable, Christian character, this old Gonzalo 
Corcantera! Hypocritical, savage, blind, like not a few 
I know. As I ceased the reading and laid down the last 
page of the translation, a concerted sigh arose from 
my auditors. I waited for no comments but continued. 

“Now for a test of this story written by a long dead 
Spaniard. I shall need a little assistance. Mr. Sulli¬ 
van—Thank you.” 

I do not know whether Abe doubted the story or not; 
he came forward with alacrity. To him I handed a piece 
of stout rope. This we looped about the upper hasp 
so that Sullivan, standing behind the chest, could draw 
upward. I took a stick about the average dimensions 
of a cane. With it I attacked the lock. The audience 
craned forward in their chairs. Isobel gave a little call, 
but checked it almost before she cried out. For some 
moments we worked, pulling, jerking and pushing ’with¬ 
out the lid’s moving. Then a strong thrust on my part 


“The Fangs of the Serpent’’ 279 

released the lock and the lid flew up with a jerk 
Nothing happened. I closed it again, remarking: 

As we do not know the exact number of times this 
chest has been opened since Stitmore Tithes was struck, 
we must exercise caution, working it again and again. 
While twenty-seven was set down as the base number, 
we cannot know but what there is another factor. We 
may set it in action long before the twenty-seventh 
opening, or it may take several times twenty-seven 
before the fangs strike.” 

“One,” counted Abe, as we prepared to try again. 
This unlatching took a much shorter time, for we had 
discovered the movements necessary to release the lock, 
no result. “Two,” counted Abe, as he closed the lid 
again. 

On, on, went the experiments; there was no lessening 
of the tension among us. No word was spoken save 
Sullivan in counting; no movements, save those we 
made in opening and closing the chest. “Ten,” Abe 
counted, and still nothing to show. The lid made a 
great din, groaning and creaking as we operated it. 

“Twenty,” he announced, keyed nearly to the break¬ 
ing point by now. For, if the story w^ere true, there 
were seven, or less, more moves. Again we adjusted 
the rope and plied the stick. The lid rose, but as it 
did so- 

Like a flash of light something darted from near the 
lower lock and struck the stick, hurling it from my 
hand. Snap, and it was back in its place, hidden from 
view and with a muffled bang the cover dropped of its 
own accord. But in the flash of movement, I saw 
that the arm was of bronze and moved with a sweep; 
at the end were two short, curved needles. 



280 The Fangs of the Serpent 

Abe straightened up and wiped the perspiration from 
his brow. I felt the reaction from the nervous strain, 
and dropped into a chair. A dull hum, unconsciously 
spoken thought, filled the room. It died away as I 
pulled myself to my feet. 

“Thus Mr. Oswald met his death; and but two days 
ago, Stitmore Tithes fell a victim.” I paused. Isobel 
was sobbing but I could not comfort her now. “It 
seems probable Mr. Oswald had been reading the letters 
he had concealed. It must have been then that the 
corner was torn from one of them and became caught 
in his clothes, to be found beneath him later. After 
turning the chest right side up, he must have opened 
it. If he was on his knees when the fangs struck, he 
was hurled backward by the force of the blow. It 
seems most probable that he rose to his feet and started 
for the stairs; the poison worked too quickly; he col¬ 
lapsed as he reached the end of the chest.” 

They followed my line of reasoning closely, glancing 
from point to point as I mentioned them. 

“In the search for the supposed murderer of Mr. 
Osw r ald, or, more properly, this weapon, the chest was 
opened again and again—and I shiver when I think 
that I was one who opened it many times—yet not 
enough to work the mechanism while it was being in¬ 
vestigated. For some reason known to himself, Stit¬ 
more Tithes went to the chest. His opening was the 
fatal twenty-seventh since Mr. Oswald opened it. He 
was struck and died.” 

Isobel had followed with closest attention. Now she 
threw in a puzzled question. I could feel the sup¬ 
pressed sob in her dear throat as she asked: 


“The Fangs of the Serpent” 281* 

“But if he was struck in the way—father was, how 
was he found so far from the chest?” 

“The probability lies in this explanation,” and I 
looked at Dr. Templeton, for he had made the conten¬ 
tion on the day Tithes’ body was found. “Mr. Tithes 
was a much younger man than Mr. Oswald, and had 
much greater vitality. After he was struck he had time 
to take many steps before he dropped; always granting 
that the strength of the poison was the same. This 
might not be; with the passing of the centuries the 
gum would harden and each movement of the arm would 
wear a deeper groove in the curari, so that the fangs 
may receive but a minute quantity at the present time.” 

“Horrible, horrible,” Isobel gasped. The lined 
faces of the others reflected the same thought. The 
coroner spoke up. 

“Yes, Mr. Bowen, I believe you are right. But does 
any one know how many lives this murderous device 
has taken?” 

I brought out the letter from James Orth and 
opening it, explained. 

“This letter was yesterday brought to my attention 
by Mr. Mars. It is from Mr. Oswald’s private files. 
It directed my attention to the chest. Permit me to 
read the pertinent part,” and I gave them that portion 
that offered the key. 

“So you see,” I added, as I folded the letter and 
replaced it in my pocket, “that there are a number of 
deaths which in all probability were caused by the 
chest. There were five while it was in the possession 
of Jesus Quintanilla; also, the inference is that the 
seven skeletons about it in the cave were those of men 
who had opened it at various times in the centuries it 


282 The Fangs of the Serpent 

lay there. Add the two recent deaths and there are 
fourteen murders that Gonzalo Corcantera must 
answer for.” 

And if he killed the Inca, the number would be fifteen, 
computed Abe. I shook my head. 

“If history does not state falsely, there the Span¬ 
iard failed. Huayna Capac died about a year after 
the chest was completed, but the record of the early 
conquerors of the Peruvian nation is that the great 
chieftain died a natural death. It might be inferred 
that the bones described by Orth as lying on the shelf 
in the cave were those of some favorite of the Inca to 
whom he gave the chest and with whom it was buried. 
And the bones of the Caucasian at the rear of the cave 
may have been the remains of Corcantera. It was an 
Inca custom for servants and underlings to die when 
the master did. Thus when the head of the Inca nation 
passed out, a large number of persons suffered death, 
—apparently willingly,—that he might not enter the 
other world without a large retinue. So, possibly, the 
Spaniard was sent with the chest and when the owner 
died he, too, was despatched. There is no evidence to 
show that the master was killed by the chest.” 

The mystery of the deaths was solved, but there were 
many minor points on which we could never hope for 
information. Often I wonder what was the saying 
Corcantera gave the people of the Incas that would 
reveal to another Spaniard the secret hiding place of 
his letter. 

The odd nature of the curari was no longer a prob¬ 
lem. As that now known to science comes from the 
northern part of South America, any prepared four 
hundred years ago, and as far south as Peru, would be 


“The Fangs of the Serpent’’ 283 

much different from the modern poison. This would 
account for Jimmy Haslette’s puzzlement. 

It was Sullivan who now put to me a question I had 
hoped would not be asked. 

“How did you happen to find that crevice with the 
papers? It was so well hidden that it escaped the 
search of you and me, as well as Dr. Herron, all the 
times we went over it.” 

I hesitated before replying. Should I invent a 
plausible explanation, or should I tell the whole truth? 
I decided on the latter course. 

“It was through no efforts of my own.” I faced and 
addressed them all. “In our early investigation of 
Mr. Oswald’s death, we came upon what seemed mani¬ 
festations of the occult, forces beyond those of this 
world. These supernormal phenomena we traced to 
an earthly origin.” 

I smiled apologetically. I had no desire to call 
attention to the mediums nor to Isobel, who had been 
deceived by them. 

“I now have to call your attention to an experience 
of the same sort that happened to me. I found those 
papers by supernormal assistance. I was here in the 
museum alone. There was no person on this floor. 
The officer on guard had gone out for the evening 
meal. I had come here because I felt that the secret 
of the deaths lay among these collections; and I now 
had something pointing directly to the chest, the letter 
of James Orth. 

“As I stood before this old box made by Corcantera 
so long ago, a feeling of fear stole over me. The 
longer I studied the copperbound exterior, the more I 
disliked to touch the thing. If his story was true, what 


284 The Fangs of the Serpent 

might not happen to me? And then there came to 
my ears a faint ‘tap—tap/ with a pause followed by 
a quick ‘tp. 5 I thought my sense of hearing was 
deceiving me. I must have imagined it. I listened a 
moment. After quite an interval it came: ‘tap—tap, 
tp.’ At once it recurred to me that this was the signal 
Mr. Oswald used in calling Deborah. Again I heard 
it. Who was signaling? Whence came it? Other than 
Miss Oswald, Detective Sullivan, Dr. Herron and my¬ 
self, the only two who knew of his making use of this 
call were in custody. All these I at once dismissed 
from consideration; they would have no motive in 
sounding it. Then who could it be? Again came the 
taps, faint yet distinct: ‘M. E/, ‘M. E.* 

“In my surprise and agitation at recognizing the 
call, I had failed to note from whence it came. It 
seemed to be in the air all about me. But now I lis¬ 
tened with a purpose; if it sounded again, I would note 
just where it was. The muffled taps struck my ear 
drums again; I grasped that it came from the direction 
of the hall. At once I felt that some one was in the 
hall tapping on the separating partition, and rushed 
round to the door. The hall was empty; but the tap¬ 
ping did not cease. Even as I stood in the doorway, I 
sensed it again. Now it was back on the other side of 
the wall. After several false moves I at length localized 
it in the chest. 

“My hair stood up straight. Was there some one in 
the tiling? I want to say that never have I attempted 
a task with more reluctance than I did the raising of 
this lid. I had to force myself up to the lock and, as I 
grasped it, I had such terror of operating it that I 
almost gave up. Even as I touched it, the raps were 


“The Fangs of the Serpent” 285 

repeated. I kept thinking that at my next move I 
would feel the prick of the points, but finally I raised 
the lid and leaped back. A useless precaution; the box 
was empty. 

“Yet, even while the lid stood raised the tapping was 
renewed. It was uncanny, standing beside an open 
chest and hearing an intelligence out of the nowhere 
communicating by taps on a box. But was it a com¬ 
munication? I listened very closely to the next series 
and detected that they came from a point on the edge 
of the lid, and there I found the strip of copper that 
was movable. After I moved that band, the taps never 
came again. I had found the papers. 

“Simple, certainly, but what a problem it leaves! 
Who was signaling to me? And why to me? Was it 
the intelligence we call Mr. Oswald? He knew the chest 
had killed him, but during his life was he aware of the 
secret of the hiding place? He it was who used the 
‘M. E.’ call. Or was it Gonzalo Corcantera? He was 
familiar with the hiding place of his message, and of 
the terrible weapon hidden in the box. But did he 
know the signal ‘M. E.’? If he did, where did he obtain 
the knowledge? Or might it not have been Marian 
Ellarson, she who was the ‘M. E.’ called by the signals? 
She could not have known of the chest, the concealed 
letter, or the deaths; unless-- Or were all three sig¬ 

naling? Or do all our intelligences flow back to a cen¬ 
tral reservoir of intelligence, all knowing, which com¬ 
municated the knowledge? Or—but think of the pos¬ 
sibilities which lie in the problem, who was it?” 

As I ceased talking, Abe didn’t smile as I thought 
he would. He knew I was telling what I believed to be 
the truth. Judging from their faces, of all those 



286 The Fangs of the Serpent 

present Mrs. O’Regan obtained the most satisfaction 
from my recital. 

When I had finished, and before any one could put 
in a question, District Attorney Cummings came for¬ 
ward and stood beside me. 

“At this time,” he said, addressing the guests, “I 
bring before you another matter of much importance 
in this case. Miss Isobel Oswald has been recognized 
as the legal heir to her father’s estate, under a will 
made ten years ago. I have now to announce the dis¬ 
covery of a later testament, one executed and witnessed 
two years back.” 

When I had found that he did not want me, I took 
a seat at Isobel’s side. Cummings took from his 
pocket, as he spoke of the later document, the envelope 
which I recognized from Sullivan’s description, as that 
found upon Stitmore Tithes. But if this was the will, 
what was Tithes doing with it ? True, as Mr. Oswald’s 
lawyer, it should have been in his custody. If so, why 
had he not produced it long before? Drawing the will 
from the cover, the attorney opened it and with a few 
words of explanation began. 

“This document is far different from that under 
which Miss Isobel Oswald was given the whole estate. 
The affair is unusual, but as all interested are here 
assembled, I deem it best tp read it at this time.” 

What, I thought, is Isobel to be disinherited? And 
then my heart bounded with elation. If she lost her 
wealth the one last bar between us would be broken and 
I could offer such devotion as few, in their wildest 
dreams, dare tender. There was no time for more 
thoughts; the district attorney was reading. 

The opening details were non-essential and the main 


“The Fangs of the Serpent” 287 

clauses that came later contained many explanations, 
far from usual in such an instrument. After several 
generous bequests to servants and personal employees, 
the will stated: 

“To my daughter Isobel I hereby give, devise and 
bequeath an undivided one-half interest in the residue 
of my estate.” 

Cummings looked at Isobel. Oh, I gasped, she does 
get something, one-half. Selfishly, I had hoped she 
would receive nothing that I might offer her my life in 
its stead; for her sake, I tried to be glad. After the 
brief glance he resumed the reading. 

“To my other child, born over a year before Isobel, 
if it be living at the time of my death, I give the other 
one-half. I know not when this child was born, other 
than the year, nor where it may now be. My executors 
are hereby instructed to use every means of discovering 
this, my second heir. 

“To assist them in their search I give such details as 
I deem pertinent. In 18— I spent some months in Two 
Rocks, Wisconsin, tracing the very considerable sums 
of money which disappeared from our branch plant at 
that point. Through the assistance of the manager, 
who suspected the culprit, I obtained proof that 
resulted in his conviction. It was while here that I fell 
in love with Marian Ellarson. Some years later I mar¬ 
ried her under the name of Davis, by which she 
knew me. 

“Thus in the eyes of the law, and by the unnatural 
standards of modern morality, it was a polygamous 
marriage. Yet by Biblical teachings and by the 
hereditary inclinations of men of our race, it is right 
and proper. This is not an excuse. I did right. For 


288 The Fangs of the Serpent 

I loved her, even as I loved her whom the law regards 
as my legal wife. 

“Yet circumstance prevented me from seeing Marian 
Ellarson often. And in 18— I was forced to take 
Mrs. Oswald on a world tour, which lasted much 
over a year. On my return, I was for many months in 
a hospital. When I recovered and visited Bellefontaine 
where I had established Mrs. Davis, I could find no 
trace of her. Here I learned for the first time that a 
child had been born, but both mother and baby had 
disappeared and I have had no word of either to this 
day. 

“A year ago there came to me letters which showed 
either that Mrs. Davis was alive, or that some one was 
in possession of our secret. In my first fears I de¬ 
stroyed the marriage certificate which proved me 
guilty of legal bigamy.” 

Some one gave a great sob, a suspiration not only of 
sorrow, but of relief, even joy. I did not look around. 
I knew it was June, happy because her mother had been 
wedded, even though the ceremony was a bigamous one. 

“The letters revived the old sorrow. I knew that I 
longed with all my being to see Marian again. To 
make restitution? No; to tell her that I loved her. I 
now know that she is dead. For she has come back to 
me from the realm of shadows and brought me the 
long-desired peace of mind. I have looked into her face 
again and soon shall be with her for eternity.” 

In the face of June, his daughter, he had seen, not 
his own features, but only the countenance of his lost 
loved one. 

“But she has told me that the child lives, though 
whether boy or girl I know not. Nor do I know its 


“The Fangs of the Serpent” 


289 


name, though doubtless Davis would be its surname. 
Here, again, I enjoin my executors to search and find 
this child and give to it its rightful share of my 
estate.” 

Cummings read a few more directions which Mr. 
Oswald had set down, and then turned to June Davis 
Oswald with words of advice. 

“Miss June Davis, prove to the court that you are 
the daughter of Marian Ellarson Davis and you share 
equally in the estate with your sister, Miss Isobel,” and 
he looked at my beloved. 

The dear girl had risen to her feet. Her face was 
white and I feared she was about to faint. For once 
she had forgotten me. This was the first that she had 
known that she had a sister in the room. Isobel turned 
toward June and, as she did so, her face flushed and 
her eyes filled with tears. Half extending her arms, in 
halting words she addressed June. 

“I—never had—a sister—and I wanted one—always 

_Will you—will you—” with tear-dimmed eyes and 

quivering lips, June Davis took my Isobel into her 
arms. 

We men went out into the little hall at the head of 
the stairs and left the three women alone. 

As we stood, some one referred to the fact that 
Tithes had the will. We shall never know just what 
the reason was for its not being produced. He must 
have known of its existence, even if he did not have it 
in his possession. Did he deliberately suppress it, hop¬ 
ing to marry Isobel and secure the entire fortune? If 
Mr. Oswald had told any one, Stitmore Tithes would 
have been that one; he would have known of the child. 
But if he had the will, why had he not destroyed it? 



290 The Fangs of the Serpent 

The inhibition acquired by attorneys to make way with 
legal papers, argued Cummings, who believed in Tithes* 
guilt. 

But I must be just. It might be that on that very 
day he had found the will and was bringing it to Isobel. 
Perhaps, though I doubt it, he found it in a hiding 
place in Corcantera’s murder machine. 

Later, when the discussion became general, Sullivan 
told me of the results of the inquiry into the story told 
by June Davis, the end of which I missed. I had failed 
to grasp one point that had occurred at the materiali¬ 
zation; the cloud of vapor floating in the air of Mr. 
Oswald’s chamber. It hardly could have been a 
dematerializing spirit. Yet I had seen it. 

It really was vapor, nothing but vapor. June, in the 
corner cupboard, and partly through the sliding panel, 
concealed by her dark garment which had been turned 
immediately I made a move, sprayed water into the air. 
The light from the street lamp, angling in through the 
window, rendered a part of it visible for a brief space. 
As we gathered in the museum, preparatory to depart¬ 
ing, Abe ventured a comment. 

“After all, the Fangs of the Serpent did kill Mr. 
Oswald. A queer coincidence, I call it, that he should 
have been concerned with the fangs of another Serpent. 
It was that which misled us. Queer, queer.” 

“And father was not the horrible character that man 
Marsh tried to make out”; Isobel was quick to defend 
her father’s memory. “Father thought him guilty. 
He says so.” 

And yet—who can give back to Lionel Marsh the 
years he lost? and the love that was taken from him? 
How should I feel were I, innocent, to be cast into 


“The Fangs of the Serpent” 291 

prison, and lose IsobelP Poor old cripple! I cannot 
blame him for his bitter hatred. Life did its worst to 
him. Why should he not be bitter? 

The Oswald case is done. From the point of view 
of the press it was a sensation. How the American 
News gloated: “Our Reporter Solves the Mystery,” 
and the rest. The complete story was told, but with 
many phases barely touched upon, especially the acts 
of June Davis and of Mrs. O’Regan. 

Technically Mrs. O’Regan had committed a crime 
in making and having in her possession keys to the 
Oswald home. Roth she and June were guilty of enter¬ 
ing the house in the night time. But this is forgotten. 
June cannot be prosecuted and she would not permit 
her foster mother, who did it only for June’s sake, to 
be held accountable for these acts. 

Isobel ordered the chest destroyed; every lock, bolt, 
nut, and hinge must go. I protested, declaring that it 
could be rendered harmless and that as an historical 
relic it was of great value. But this time my arguments 
were of no avail. I later learned that the police had 
obtained possession of the bronze arm and fangs, 
though how they secured it I do not know. However, 
of this Isobel knows nothing. 

I often get to thinking of my prophecy of how the 
murderer would look. “He would be a well-educated 
man—He would be wealthy—He would not be a very 
young man, nor yet very old.” I certainly missed on 
the first two counts, though doubtless Gonzalo Corcan- 
tera was of about the age I imagined. 

Yet it is rather far-fetched to consider a man four 
hundred years dead as a modern assassin. All the wild 


292 The Fangs of the Serpent 

theories I had entertained in regard to Mr. Oswald’s 
death were now at rest. It had been no murder, such 
as we call murder; it was but an act of God through a 
revengeful Spaniard of the early Sixteenth Century. 
Could Corcantera look down upon us and see the hap¬ 
penings of this day, what must he think! 

Isobel and I are soon to be married. And Sullivan, 
the gruff, wishes us every success. To me, knowing 
Abe, this means much. He will be one of the honored 
guests—June and her mother will be there, of course— 
and another will be Dr. Cyrus Herron. 

Herron stopped off in Chicago some days ago while 
on a trip west and I told him of my finding the Cor¬ 
cantera papers by the taps which sounded “M. E.” 
We went over the possible explanations I outlined at 
the gathering in the museum. He suggested a new one. 

“You may have heard the tappings mentally, while 
physically they never existed. This hypothesis must 
be considered.” 

I doubted. This explanation was too far-fetched. 
He made plain his meaning. 

“You had been working and studying on the mystery 
of the two deaths until your mental states, both con¬ 
scious and subconscious, were saturated with it. It is 
not improbable that in going over the chest, at some 
time, you subconsciously noted the movable copper 
band, while consciously it escaped your attention.” 

I admitted that this might be true. 

“Being there alone, and with conditions favorable— 
perhaps you entered a trancelike state—the subcon¬ 
scious mind took control The taps that formed ‘M. E.’ 
had made a very deep impression on you. Therefore 
what more natural than for your unrecognized mental 


293 


u The Fangs of the Serpent 5 ’ 

apparatus to make use of this as a certain method of 
bringing to your attention the hiding place, thus 
lifting the knowledge from the subconscious into the 
conscious. 55 

It may be true. Dr. Herron should know. But— 
somehow, I prefer to think that off there in the great 
unknown beyond the sea of death, there is an intelli¬ 
gence, all-knowing, all-loving, that called back to save 
those who were beloved, June and my Isobel. 


the end 












t 































* 






















































. 






























































I 



i 






































































































































































































